UNIVERSITY  OF  N  C   AT  CHAPEL  HILL 

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00033977019  | 

FOR  USE  ONLY  IN 
THE  NORTH  CAROLINA  COLLECTION 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2010  with  funding  from 

Ensuring  Democracy  through  Digital  Access  (NC-LSTA) 


http://www.archive.org/details/capefearyadkinva1889cape 


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EMBRACING 

DESCRIPTIVE    AND    STATISTICAL    NOTICES  OF    CITIES,   TOWNS,  VILLAGES, 

AND   STATIONS;   INDUSTRIES.    AGRICULTURAL,    MANUFACTURING, 

AND  MINERAL  RESOURCES;   SCENERY  OF  THE   ROUTE; 

TRANSMONTANE   EXTENSION,    &c. 


Illustrated  wltli  EngraYings  made  from  Photographs 


philadelphia; 
Allen,  Lane  &  Scott,  Printers, 

229-231-233  South  Fifth  Street. 
ISS9. 


ORGANIZATION 


ape  l^eap  apd  Yadkir^   Valley 
Ivailu/ag  ©ompany. 


1889. 


JULIUS  A.  GRAY President. 

J.  W.  FRY .  Gen'l  Sup't. 

ROGER   P.   ATKINSON Chief  Engineer. 

J  NO.  M.  ROSE Secretary.      • 

R.  W.  BIDGOOD Auditor. 

JAS.    R.  WILLIAMS Treasurer. 

\V.  E.  KYLE G.  F.  and  P.  A. 

GEO.  M.  ROSE Attorney. 


DIRECTORS 


K.  M.  MuRCHisoN,  New  York. 
J  NO.  M.  Worth,  Asheboro,  N.  C. 
W.  A.  Lash,  Walnut  Cove,  N.  C. 
Ji'Lius  A.  Gray,  Greensboro,  N.  C. 
G.  W.  Williams,  Wilmington,  N.  C. 
Lvo.  D.  Williams,  Fayetteville,  N.  C. 


Ch.\s.  p.  Stokes,  Richmond,  Va. 

W.  A.  Moore,  Mt.  Air>-,  N.  C. 

J.  Turner  Morehead,  Leaksville,  N.  C. 

D.  W.  C.  Benbow,  Greensboro,  N.  C. 
ROBT.  T.  Gray,  Raleigh,  N.  C. 

E.  J.  Lilly,  Fayetteville,  N.  C. 


.  Offices. 

FAYETTEVILLE,    N.    C. 


GREENSBORO,    N.    C. 


Cafe  f  :ea  r  asb  Iabiii  Galley 
Sail  WAT  Ststeal 


Hs    Inception   ©   ©radual    'I®po^re55   ®   'pinal    ©ompletion. 


1! 


^jHE    uninterrupted    progress  of   the   Cape    Fear   and  Yadkin  Valley 


v^  I  \\:\  Railway,  and  its  unrivaled  prosperity  and  steadily  increasing  trattic 
since  the  granting  of  its  present  charter  by  the  General  Assembly 
•  of  1879,  were  only  to  be  expected  in  the  full  development  and 
completion  of  a  railwaj^  system  which  occupied  the  minds  of  progressive  and 
thoughtful  men  even  as  far  back  as  the  earlier  days  of  the  present  centur)'. 
This  system  embodied  the  great  ulterior  object  of  opening  to  the  markets 
of  the  world  the  rich  territory  of  the  Upper  Yadkin  Valley  by  connection 
with  Fayetteville  as  the  head  of  navigation  on  the  Cape  Fear  River.  Even 
at  as  distant  a  period  as  1815  the  immense  advantages  to  accrue  from  the 
fruition  of  this  project  caught  and  fixed  the  attention  of  leading  men  in 
the  legislature,  and  such  connection  by  canal  was  favorably  reported  and  even 
undertaken';  but  the  obstacles  opposing  themselves  proved  insurmountable  to 
the  crude  progress  of  that  da}',  and  the  work  was  abandoned.  But  inherent 
in  the  Cape  Fear  and  Yadkin  \'alley  system  was  the  \-ery  life  of  North 
Carolina's  internal  improvement — again  and  again  to  revive  and  make  itself 
felt  until  the  time  was  ripe  for  the  full  accomplishment  of  the  great  and  com- 
prehensive design.  Nearly  sixty  years  ago  a  charter  was  obtained,  and  ground 
broken  at  Fayetteville  for  the  building  of  the  Cape  Fear,  Yadkin  and  Pee 
Dee  Railroad;  but  it  was  met  bj'  difficulties — insuperable  at  that  period — of 
a  want  of  familiarity  with  railroad  work,  the  disinclination  of  a  sparse  popu- 
lation to  hazard  their  means  in  what  they  regarded  as  a  doubtful  experiment, 
and  the  inability  of  the  State  to  furnish  resources  for  the  e.xtension  of  the 
work.  For  twenty  years  the  Cape  Fear  and  Yadkin  Valley  system  lay  dor- 
mant, within  which  period  was  pushed  forward  to  completion  the  then  whole 
railroad  mileage  of  North  Carolina:  the  Raleigh  and  Gaston,  the  Wilmington 

(9J 


CAPE  FEAR  AND  YADKIN  VALLEY  RAILUAY. 


and  Weldon,  now  forming  a  great  link  of  one  hundred  and  sixty-two  miles 
in  the  Atlantic  Coast  Line,  and  the  North  Carolina  Railroad,  at  present  leased 
by  the  Richmond  and  Danville  Railroad  Company,  and  making  an  important 
part  of  that  extensive  system. 

In  1852  a  charter  was  granted  for  the  Western  (Coal  Fields)  Railroad, 
extending  from  Fayetteville  west  through  the  counties  of  Cumberland,  Moore, 
Harnett  and  Chatham,  which,  with  the  large  amount  of  stock  taken  therein 
by  the  State,  and  by  the  aid  of  liberal  subscriptions  from  the  county  of  Cum- 
berland, the  town  of  Fayetteville  and  individual  stockholders,  was  built  to 
Egypt,  progressing  no  farther  than  that  point  when  the  outbreak  of  the  war 
suspended  all  further  operations.  Imperfectly  worked  as  they  were,  the  coal 
mines  of  Egypt,  and  the  Western  Railroad,  with  its  facilities  for  transporta- 
tion, proved  of  incalculable  service  to  the  Confederate  Government  in  the 
struggle  of  four  years  which  ensued. 

Fourteen  years  elapsed.  The  political  rehabilitation  and  reconstruction 
of  the  seceded  States  had  been  accomplished  ;  and  again  this  great  system 
of  State  internal  improvement  and  material  development  demanded  recogni- 
tion and  received  it  at  the  hands  of  the  General  Assembly  of  P679,  which, 
by  an  act  ratified  February  25th,  authorized  the  consolidation  of  the  West- 
ern Railroad  with  the  Mt.  Air\'  Railroad,  and  changed  the  name  of  the  cor- 
poration to  that  of  Cape  Fear  and  Yadkin  Valley  Railway  Company.  At 
the  next  session  of  the  General  Assembly,  and  again  in  that  of  1S83,  the 
State  surrendered  her  interests  in  the  road,  with  some  needed  concessions, 
to  a  compan)'  of  private  citizens,  who  have  been  building  wisely  and  vigor- 
ously ever  since  the  affairs  of    the  corporation  passed   into  their  hands. 

Almost  immediately  after  assuming  the  management  of  the  Cape  Fear 
and  Yadkin  Valley  Railway,  April  6th,  1881,  the  present  company  entered 
into  a  contract  with  the  directors  of  the  Fayetteville  and  Florence  Railroad 
for  the  extension  over  its  graded  road-bed  of  the  Cape  Fear  and  Yadkin 
\  alley  to  Shoe  Heel,  intersecting  the  Carolina  Central  Railway  at  that  point, 
and  continuing  on  to  the  State  line.  Simultaneously  the  work  of  construc- 
tion was  pushed  westward,  trains  were  running  into  the  city  of  Greensboro 
on  the  day  of  the  annual  meeting  of  stockholders  in  1S84,  and  earl)-  in 
autumn  of  the  same  year  the  southern  extension  tapped  the  Carolina  Central 
Railroad  at   Shoe  Heel  (now  Maxton),  in   Robeson  County. 

On  the  26th  of  July,  1883,  a  contract  had  been  made  with  the  directors 
of  the  Southern  Pacific  Railway  for  the  grading,  tracklaying  and  equipment 
of  that  road  from  the  State  line  to  Bennettsville,  S.  C.  ;  and  b)'  the  5th  of 
December,  1884,  the  great  work  was  completed — a  distance  of  one  hundred 
and    fifty-four    miles    from    Bennetts\-ille    to    Greensboro,    with    ample    rolling 


CAPE  FEAR  AND  YADKIN  VALLEY  RAILWAY.  I  3 

stock,  station-houses,  warehouses,  and  freight  accommodations — while  at  the 
latter  city  convenient  connection  was  made  with  the  Richmond  and  Danville 
Railroad.  But  the  green  hills  of  Piedmont  were  now  just  in  sight,  while 
the  stalwart  mountaineers  of  the  Blue  Ridge  were  waiting  with  eager  eye 
and  heart  intent  for  the  advent  of  this  agent  of  civilization  and  develop- 
ment. With  every  mile  of  grading  and  construction  the  difficulties  of 
engineering  were  multiplied  ;  but  there  was  little  pause  in  the  \\ork  of  ex- 
tension, and  very  soon  the  road  \\-ound  its  wa}'  through  the  suburbs  of 
Greensboro  westward,  passing  under  the  North  Carolina  Railroad  within  the 
limits  of  the  cit\'.  On  the  20th  of  June,  1888,  excursion  trains  carried 
thousands  of  people  from  every  point  along  the  line  of  the  Cape  Fear  and 
Yadkin  Valley  Railway  to  participate  in  the  ceremonies  incident  to  the  cele- 
bration of  Mt.  Air\'"s  railroad  connection  with  the  great  outer  world — the 
beautiful  village  h'ing  under  the  shadow  of  the  towering  chain  of  the  Blue 
Ridge. 

A  branch  road  had  in  the  meantime  been  laid  to  Millboro — in  the  vicinity 
of  the  extensive  factories  at  Franklinville  and  other  points  on  Deep  River — 
connecting  with  the  main  line  at  Factor}-  Junction,  twelve  miles  east  of 
Greensboro;  and  on  the  28th  of  December,  1888,  the  Madison  Branch, 
e-xtending  from  Stokcsdale  to  Madison,  traversing  a  fertile  portion  of  Rock- 
ingham county,  had  been  so  nearly  completed  as  to  admit  of  running  a 
regular  train  schedule  to  within  a  few  hundred  j-ards  of  the  town. 

It  is  proper  to  say  here  that  all  the  work  of  construction  within  the  past 
five  years  has  been  performed  by  contract  by  the  North  State  Improvement 
Company,  incorporated  in  the  year  1883,  and  composed  of  men  of  high 
character  and  prominence  in  business  circles,  of  which  John  D.  Williams, 
of  Fayetteville,  is  president ;  and  the  traveling  public  cheerfully  bear  witness 
to  the  fidelity  with  which  the  \\ork  has  been  done. 

A  ver>-  significant  fact  in  the  history  of  the  Cape  Fear  and  Yadkin 
Valley  Railway  it  may  not  be  amiss  to  note  before  proceeding  to  a  compila- 
tion of  the  descriptive  gazette  of  the  mineral,  manufacturing  and  agricultural 
resources  of  the  different  sections  of  North  Carolina  which  it  reaches  and 
renders  accessible  to  the  \\'orld's  markets:  no  other  raih\'ay  enterprise  has 
interfered  with  its  progress,  or  lessened  the  need  of  its  completion.  During 
the  past  ten  years  of  its  present  name,  director}^  and  management,  together 
with  a  few  years  previous  thereto,  the  Western  Division  of  the  North  Caro- 
lina Railroad  has  been  completed,  that  portion  of  the  Carolina  Central  which 
had  long  remained  as  a  gap  between  Wadesboro  and  Charlotte  has  been 
laid,  the  Salem  Branch  of  the  Piedmont  Air-Line  has  been  built,  the  Raleigh 
and   Augusta   Air-Line  has   made    connection    with    the    Carolina    Central    at 


14  CAPE  FEAR  AND  YADKLX  I'ALLEY  RAILWAY. 

Mamlet,  the  Wilson  Short  Cut,  a  branch  of  the  Atlantic  Coast  Line,  has  been 
finished — and  other  less  important  branches,  extending  into  Virginia  and  South 
Carolina,  have  been  constructed  or  are  in  process  of  construction.  Not  one 
has  discredited  the  wisdom,  weakened  the  importance,  or  proved  a  serious 
obstacle  to  the  completion  of  the  Cape  Fear  and  Yadkin  Valley  Railway, 
which — crossing  the  chief  water-ways  of  the  State  and  forming  a  direct  line 
through  some  of  the  finest  region  of  the  three  geological  divisions  of  North 
Carolina — bisects  it  from  northwest  to  southeast,  aiming  to  make  final  con- 
nection by  the  shortest  route  with  the  great  railway  highway  at  Cincinnati, 
and  combining  finally  that  most  admirable  feature  of  railroading  which 
reaches  out  and  penetrates  the  undeveloped  back  country,  with  its  own  great 
seaport  for  an  outlet,  with  all  its  advantages  to  hundreds  of  miles  of  interior 
of  its  shipping,  diversified  manufactures  and  commerce.  Lastly,  it  is  note- 
worthy that  the  increase  of  business  of  the  Cape  Fear  and  Yadkin  Valley 
Railway  has  kept  pace  with  every  mile  of  road  built.  No  station  along  the 
line  has  failed  to  swell  the  receipts;  no  branch  has  proven  unremunerative 
for  the  outlay;  and  the  reports  at  every  stockholders'  meeting  demonstrate 
a  largely   augmenting  volume  of  business. 


Eastern    "©ivi^ion. 


FROM    WILMINGTON    TO    FAYETTEVI LLE— ElGHTY-ON  E    AND    SEVEN-TENTHS    MILES. 


WILMINGTON. 


j^^^^ILMINGTON,  the  eastern  terminus  of  the  Cape  Fear  and  Yadkin 
(  (r  I  ^'alley  Railway,  the  largest  town  in  North  Carolina,  and  one  of 
|-'i^_S  *^^^  most  important  ports  on  the  South  Atlantic  coast,  is  situated 
on  the  east  side  of  the  Cape  Fear  River,  and  (air-line)  twenty- 
six  miles  from  its  bar.  In  a  direct  line  the  city  is  distant  but  little  over  six 
miles  from  the  ocean. 

More  than  a  century  ago  a  devastating  storm  formed  what  is  now  known 
as  New  Inlet;  this  breach  did  not  show  itself  in  the  channel  until  1850,  when 
the  Government  made  an  appropriation  of  $100,000.  Careful  engineering 
showed  two  water  shoals  and  exits  in  the  channel,  and  the  draught  of  water 
was  reduced  from  twent}--two  to  twelve  feet. 

To  remedy  this  evil  the  Government  has  expended  from  1870  up  to  June 
30th,  1888,  something  over  §1,851,000,  with  substantial  success,  securing  from 
fourteen  to  fourteen  and  five-tenths  least  depth  of  water  at  the  main  bar 
entrance,  with  a  channel  of  sixteen  feet  depth  twenty-eight  miles  farther  to 
Wilmington.  Ci:)mbining  this  depth  \\-ith  average  rise  of  tide  of  four  and  five- 
tenths  feet  at  the  bar,  and  two  and  five-tenths  feet  at  the  city,  loaded  vessels 
with  a  draught  of  sixteen  feet  can  go  from  Wilmington  to  the  ocean  on  a 
single  tide  an\'  da\^  of  the  year. 

From  the  time  this  work  of  the  Go\^ernment  was  commenced  until  18S7, 
the  total  commerce  of  Wilmington  had  increased  from  $13,500,000  per 
annum  to  nearly  $20,000,000,  and  its  foreign  exports  alone  from  less  than 
$1,500,000  to  over  $8,000,000.  The  carrying  out  of  the  recommendations  of 
Captain  Bixby,  Chief  Engineer,  that  the  dike  be  finished  south  to  Zeke  Is- 
land, so  as  to  secure  Smith's  Island  from  further  erosion  by  the  ocean,  with 
the  widening  of  the  river  channels  to  their  full  dimensions  of  two  hundred 
and  seventy  feet,  will  probably  restore  the  original  full  depth  of  water.  The 
company's  shipping  facilities  at  Point  Peter  will  be  good,  as  sixteen  feet  depth 
of  water  can  be  gotten  there  on  tide.  Their  terminal  facilities  will  be  first- 
class,  with  train  yards  of  ample  accommodations  to  transport  their  freight  to 
Point  Peter,  where  lighters  will  carry  it  to  the  city  wharves  of  the  company. 

(17) 


1 8  CAPE  FEAR  AND  YADKIN  VALLEY  RAILWAY. 

CdALiNG  Station. 

In  the  descriptive  gazette  of  the  ITpper  Cape  Fear  and  Deep  River  Divi- 
sion, a  full  report  has  been  made  of  the  work  now  going  on  at  the  Egypt 
coal  mines,  giving  an  output  of  three  hundred  tons  per  diem.  The  careful 
sketch  of  the  transmontane  extension,  which  concludes  this  hand-book,  makes 
it  certain  that  the  connection  of  the  Cape  Fear  and  Yadkin  Valle}-  Railway 
with  the  Norfolk  and  Western  will  give  it  large  freights  from  the  coal  fields 
of  Southwest  Virginia  and  Southeast  Kentuck)-.  This  will  make  necessary  a 
branch  road  to  Southport,  which  offers  exceptional  advantages  as  the  great 
coaling  station  on  the  South  Atlantic  coast.  Vessels  putting  into  Newport 
News  for  coal  go  in  one  hundred  and  eighty  miles,  and  out  the  same  dis- 
tance ;  Southport,  from  the  beaten  track,  is  twenty-three  miles  in  and  out. 
Such   unsurpassed  advantages  require  no  comment. 


INIanufactukinc. 

The  manufacturing  establishments  are  numerous,  and  man}-  of  them  exten- 
sive, classified  as  follows  : — 
.  5  steam  saw  and  planing  mills. 
3  sash,  blind  and  door  factories.     . 

1  ice  factory. 

3  machine  shops  and  foundries. 

2  fertilizer  manufactories. 

I  factory  of  pine  wool  matting  fibre  and  pine  wool  cotton  bagging. 

3  establishments  for  the  manufacture  of  clothing. 
I  ladies'  and  children's  underwear  factorj-. 

3  carriage  factories. 

3  soda  water  and  beer  bottling  establishments. 
I  chemical  companj-. 

I  paint  and  oil  manufactory. 

1  dyeing-  establishment. 

I  cotton  mill. 

1  stocking  factory. 

I  marble  works. 

I  creosote  and  acid  works. 

1  naval  store  manufactory. 

2  packers  and  refiners  of  tar. 

2  rice  mills. 

4  grain  mills. 

3  candy  factories. 

I  alcohol  manufactory. 

This  makes  a  total  of  45  manifold  and  valuable  industries. 


CAPE  FEAR  AND  YADKIN  VALLEY  RAILWAY. 


New  Industries. 

The  Acme  Manufacturing  Company,  occupying  extensive  buildings  a  few 
miles  from  the  city,  has  developed  a  new  industry  which  is  destined,  probably, 
to  prove  a  ver}-  important  one.  From  the  green  straw  of  the  pine  (a  material 
which  exists  in  inexhaustible  quantities  through  all  that  section  of  the  State), 
they  manufacture  a  fibre  which  distinguished  surgical  authority  has  pronounced 
of  exceptional  value  in  the  dressing  of  wounds ;  carpet  matting  and  bedding 
are  also  made  therefrom,  which  are  durable,  handsome,  and  free  from  insects, 
to  which  the  balsamic  odor  of  the  pine  leaf  is  peculiarly  obnoxious.  But  the 
most  important  branch  of  this  industr}-,  in  a  commercial  point  of  view,  is  the 
manufacture  of  pine  fibre  cotton  bagging,  which,  it  is  claimed,  is  in  all  respects 
equal  to  jute  bagging.  From  this  pine  leaf  is  also  extracted  an  oil,  antiseptic 
and  possessed  of  medicinal  virtues.  The  Carolina  Oil  and  Creosoting  Com- 
pany extensively  manufactures  creosote  oil  from  ordinary  pine  wood,  and 
effectively  prepares  piling  and  timber  against  rot  and  the  ravages  of  other 
destructive  agencies.  The  timber,  after  being  subjected  to  a  process  which 
thoroughly  carbonizes  it,  is  placed  in  creosoting  cylinders,  where  it  is 
thoroughly  impregnated  with  the  oil,  and  is  sent  out  for  effective  use  for  an 
almost  unlimited  time.  The  company  has  a  capacity  of  about  thirt}'  thou- 
sand linear  feet  per  day.  There  are,  besides,  the  Wilmington  and  Champion 
Cotton  Compress  Companies,  occupying  magnificent  structures  in  the  business 
part  of  the  city,  with  about  an  equal  capacity  of  from  twelve  hundred  to 
fifteen  hundred  bales  per  day  of  twenty-four  hours.  This  preparation  for  ship- 
ment and  movement  of  cotton,  it  will  be  readily  seen,  makes  in  the  aggregate 
an  immense  volume  of  business  in  the  employment  of  hands,  the  transactions 
at  the  banking  houses,  and  the  placing  of  a  large  amount  of  ready  money  in 
circulation.  The  completion  of  the  Cape  Fear  and  Yadkin  Valley  Railway  will 
increase  the  area  of  cotton  production,  and  will  thus  benefit  Wilmington  as  a 
market  for  that  staple. 

The  Growth  of  Wilmington. 

The  city  of  Wilmington  is  steadily  increasing  in  population  (and  conse- 
quently in  dwellings  and  other  structures),  wealth,  manufacturing  and  com- 
merce. No  better  demonstration  could  be  made  of  the  enlargement  of  the 
city's  limits  and  of  the  number  of  those  whose  business  or  pleasure  carries  them 
from  one  portion  to  the  other  da}'  by  day,  than  the  fact  that,  while  one 
street-railway  was  discontinued  for  the  want  of  adequate  support,  that  now  in 
operation  is  paying  what  would  be  a  satisfactory  dividend  on  more  than  double 
its  stock.  The  best  informed  of  its  citizens  estimate  that  the  census  of  1S90 
will  give  it  a  population  of  about  twenty-seven  thousand,  the  increase  being 
mostly  white. 


CAPE  FEAR  AND  YADKIN  VALLEY  RAILWAY. 


Exports. 

The  following  official  table  gives  the  amount  of  exports  in  its  leading  arti- 
cles for  the  year   1888: — 

Cotton  (bales) 162,993 

Spirits  turpentine  (casks) 63,473 

Rosin  (barrels)    246,566 

Tar  (barrels)    63, 163 

Crude  turpentine  (barrels) 21,572 

Timber  and  lumber  (feet) 36,679,509 

Pitch   (barrels) 8,489 

Peanuts  (bushels) 40,397 

Cotton  goods  (packages)    iiSH 

Shingles 6,663,980 

Besides  the  leading  articles  above  enumerated,  there  is  a  large  export  trade, 
foreign  and  coastwise,  of  cotton  seed  and  cotton-seed  oil,  rice,  peanuts,  peas, 
garden  truck,  melons  and  other  fruits,  &c. 

Shippinc;. 

The  improvements  made  and  being  made  by  the  Government  work  in  the 
harbor  have  been  followed  by  a  marked  increase  in  the  size  of  the  vessels 
entering  port.  An  average  tonnage  for  foreign  sail  has  been  raised  from  two 
hundred  to  four  hundred  tons,  though  many  vessels  register  as  high  as  one 
thousand  or  twelve  hundred  tons,  with  foreign  steamers  ranging  from  eight 
hundred  to  seventeen  hundred  tons.  The  arrivals  in  port  for  the  year  1888 
were  as  follows  : — 

Foreign  steamers    24         26,083  tons. 

"        sail 107         42,742     " 

Total 131  68,825'     " 

American  steamers    95  76,567  tons. 

"  sail    .- 144         40,251      " 

239       116,818     " 


The  New  York  and  Wilmington  Steamship  Company's  notably  improved 
business  is  a  gratifying  evidence  of  the  city's  increasing  prosperity.  The  line 
is  now  doing  all  that  it  can  manage,  and  will  undoubtedly  in  the  near  future 
be  forced  to  enlarge  its  service  and  transportation. 


cape  fear  axd  yadkin  valley  railway.  25 

"  Fisheries. 

But  the  future,  after  all,  is  to  develop  the  great  industry  of  Wilmington — 
the  cultivation  of  its  oyster-fields  and  fishing-grounds.  With  as  fine  an 
oyster  as  is  to  be  found  in  the  world  within  a  few  miles  of  their  doors,  the 
housekeepers  at  the  market,  unless  very  particular,  are  forced  to  put  up  with 
a  small,  inferior  oyster,  as  the  genuine  New  River  oyster  is  obtained  in  onh- 
limited  quantities,  being  transported  across  country  in  carts,  and  is  eagerly 
bought  up  by  restaurateurs,  to  be  generally  served  on  the  half-shell,  where 
the_\-  are  perfection,  unless  surpassed  by  the  "  Blue  Points  "  of  the  New  York 
market.  From  Federal  Point,  along  the  coast  for  eighty  or  ninety  miles, 
with  a  width  of  from  one  to  two  miles,  is  a  continuous  sound  filled  with 
vast  oyster-beds  thousands  of  acres  in  extent,  and  abounding  in  innumerable 
choice  fish  of  every  description.  Once  connect  this  immense  field  for  a 
remunerative  industry  with  Wilmington  by  rail  (the  distance  is  only  a  few 
miles),  and  the  city  would  straightway  fall  heir  to  a  profitable  business 
amounting  to  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars,  and  eventually  millions, 
annuall}-.  Oysters,  both  fresh  and  canned,  would  be  transported  over  its  lines 
of  railway,  seining  stations  would  at  once  be  established  all  along  the  sound, 
and  deep-sea  fishing  would  be  greatly  increased.  The  business  would  find 
eager  customers  at  all  the  interior  towns  on  the  Cape  Fear  and  Yadkin  Valley 
Railway,  whose  people  have  hitherto  been  shut  out  from  a  good  fish  and 
o}-ster  market,  and  who  covet  these  luxuries  even  more  than  the  dwellers  along 
the  coast. 

The  Water-Supply. 

Wilmington  is  supplied  with  water  by  the  Clarendon  Water- Works  Com- 
pan\-,  whose  plant  is  situated  immediate!}^  in  front  of  the  historic  old  mansion 
of  Cornelius  Harnett.  It  is  the  combined  standpipe  and  direct-pressure 
system,  with  three  duple.x  Worthington  pumps  of  a  total  capacity  of  three 
million  gallons  in  twenty-four  hours,  running  through  about  twelve  miles  of 
main  pipe  from  four  to  twelve  inches  in  diameter,  to  which  is  attached 
one  hundred  and  five  public  and  seventeen  private  fire-hydrants.  The  aver- 
age daily  consumption  of  water  is  about  five  hundred  thousand  gallons.  The 
company  has  also  commenced  the  boring  of  an  artesian  well,  which,  at  the 
close  of  winter,  had  attained  a  depth  of  five  hundred  and  fifty  feet. 

Wh.\rf  and  Terminal  Facilities. 

The  company  has  recently  purchased  property  for  terminus  of  road  at 
Point  Peter,  just  at  the  confluence  of  Cape  Fear  and  North  East  Rivers, 
with  a  wharf  front  of  thirteen  hundred  and  sixty  feet.     Contracts  have  been 


CAPE  FEAR  AND  YADKIN  VALLEY  RAILWAY. 


let,  the  work  of  pile-driving  for  the  company's  wharves  was  commenced  on 
the    15th  of   March,  and  the  work  will  be  completed  by   1st  of  ]May. 

Valuable  property-  has  also  been  bought  in  Wilmington,  adjoining  the 
Ocean  Steamship  Wharf,  of  one  hundred  feet  under  shelter,  with  one  hun- 
dred and  thirty-seven  feet  front  adjacent,  the  whole  running  back  to  Water 
Street,  and  including  two  valuable  brick  buildings.  The  transfer  of  passengers 
and  freight  from  the  terminus  of  the  road  to  the  company's  wharves  in  Wil- 
mington will  be  made  by  steam-feny  and  lighters. 

It  is  confidently  expected  that  the  eastern  extension  \\\\\  be  completed 
by  the  close  of  the  present  year,  which  every  branch  of  business  in  Wilming- 
ton will  feel  immediately  most  beneficially.  Besides  the  increased  facilities  for 
obtaining  timber  offered  to  the  workers  in  wood,  and  the  nc\N  field  opened 
for  all  descriptions  of  manufacturing,  the  merchants  of  Wilmington  will 
enjoy  great  advantages  in  lower  rates  of  freight,  and  will  be  enabled  to  sell 
almost  any  class  of  goods  to  country  dealers  at  any  point  on  the  road  as  far 
west  as  Greensboro,  as  cheaply  as  they  can  be  bought  at  Richmond  or 
Baltimore. 

Wilmington  to  the  Health  or  Pleasure  Seeker. 

With  a  mean  annual  temperature  of  sixty-three  degrees,  and  a  mean  hu- 
midity of  fifty-seven  degrees,  Wilmington  offers  to  the  tourist,  in  a  hygienic 
point  of  view,  attractions  not  to  be  surpassed  by  any  part  of  South  Florida 
or  Georgia.  Here  the  winds  hardly  ever  blow  from  one  quarter  for  more 
than  forty  to  forty-eight  hours,  it  is  nearly  entirely  free  from  fogs,  and  is  as 
exempt  from  epidemic  diseases  as  it  is  possible  for  a  place  to  be.  In  a  con- 
tracted area,  embracing  Southport  and  Wilmington,  the  climate  is  semi-trop- 
ical, and  snow  rarely  ever  falls.  On  the  afternoon  of  February  21st,  of  this 
year,  the  slow-moving  leaden  clouds  gave  the  people  of  Wilmington  a  treat, 
and  great  flakes  fell  thick  and  fast  for  an  hour,  covering  the  ground  to  the 
depth  of  an  inch  or  two.  The  writer  watched  with  much  amusement  the 
wild  delight  of  )-oung  and  old  in  their  welcome  of  the  rare  visitor,  and  he 
was  assured  by  one  aged  citizen,  whose  cheeks  were  aglow  with  the  exercise, 
and  his  hat  crushed  in  by  a  snowball, -that  they  "hadn't  had  such  a  good  snow 
in  fifteen  years."  As  a  summer  resort  Wilmington  offers  to  the  tourist  and  the 
invalid  advantages  which  are  unparalleled  by  that  of  any  other  point  on  the  At- 
lantic coast.  Rapid  and  agreeable  transit  by  shell  road,  steamer  and  railway  has 
been  provided  to  Carolina  Beach,  Wrightsville  Sound  and  "The  Rocks,"  at 
all  three  of  which  the  hotel  accommodations  are  e.vcellent,  and  during  the 
season  that  is  daily  witnessed  which  is  possible  nowhere  else  from  Maine  to 
Florida — the  visitor   is  transported    up   to   the   very  surf,  to   mingle   with   the 


CAPE  FEAR  AND  YADKIN  VALLEY  RAILWAY.  29 

sportive  bathers,  b\-  the  locomotive,  which  would  almost  seem  to  be  striving 
to  lave  its  heated  sides  in  the  tossing,  foaming  waves.  The  surf  bathing  is 
safe  and  delightful;  the  waters  of  the  sound  offer  a  wide  area  for  yachting 
and  sail-boating,  while  the  fishing  is  superb — Spanish  mackerel  of  great  size, 
the  blackfish,  bluefish,  pigfish,  flounder  and  other  species  being  caught  in 
great  numbers.  The  last  General  Assembly  of  North  Carolina  also  fixed 
the  permanent  encampment  of  the  State  Guard  at  Wrightsville,  assembling 
in  July,  which  will  prove  an  accession  to  the  pleasant  features  of  that  resort 
during  the  season. 

The  hotel  accommodations  of  the  city  of  Wilmington  will  now  compare 
favorably  with  those  of  an}'  other  city  in  the  South.  The  Orton,  an  ornate  and 
commodious  edifice,  recently  constructed  on  North  Front  Street,  with  its 
elegantly  furnished  chambers,  its  parlors  fitted  up  with  c\'ery  luxur\',  its 
exquisitely  appointed  dining-room,  the  careful  and  polite  attention  of  its 
employes,  and,  most  important  of  all,  its  perfect  aiisnic,  offers  to  the  voyager 
a  pleasant  house  of  rest  during  his  journeyings,  or  to  the  invalid  a  beautiful 
home,  supplied  with  every  comfort  during  the  months  of  winter,  and  crowned 
with  every  attraction  during  the  heat  of  summer.  The  guests  of  the  Orton 
Hotel  have  the  privileges  of  the  fishing  and  hunting  of  the  Orton  plantation, 
one  of  the  princely  possessions  of  the  builder  and  owner  of  the  hotel.  Colonel 
K.  M.  Murchison,  of  New  York.  Here  are  about  nine  thousand  acres  of 
"preserved"  land,  upon  \\'hich  is  situated  the  old  homestead,  and  about  it 
lingers  still  the  aroma  of  an  historic  past,  for  here  was  once  the  capital  of  the 
Colony  and  the  residence  of  the  Roj'al  Governors.  Here,  too,  are  the  ruins 
of  old  St.  Philip's  Church,  built  in  175  i,  to  which  was  presented  a  silver  com- 
munion service  by  George  III.  of  England;  but  the  brier  and  the  vine  have 
possessed  themselves  of  sculptured  lintel  and  plinth,  dank  weeds  invade  the 
broken  chancel,  silence  enwraps  the  crumbling  wall,  and  the  gray,  majestic 
ruin  is  given  up  to  "age  and  memories  of  eld." 

The  City's  Government,  &c. 

The  streets  of  the  city  are  moderately  well-lighted  by  both  gas  and  elec- 
tricity, while  three  steam  fire-engines,  with  hook  and  ladder  companies  and 
numerous  hose-reel  teams,  are  relied  upon  to  prevent  a  recurrence  of  the 
disastrous  conflagrations  which  have  twice  within  the  past  five  years  swept 
over  the  fairest  portions  of  the  city.  Like  all  old  towns,  Wilmington  lacks 
regularity  and  symmetry  in  its  architecture.  It  can  boast  of  but  few  public 
or  private  buildings  notable  for  beauty  or  costliness,  though  there  are  man\' 
handsome  churches  and  elegant  private  residences.  But  its  City  Hall  and 
Opera  House    may  well    evoke    the    pride    of   an}-  communit}-,  and    challenge 


CAPE  FEAR  AND  YADKIN  VALLEY  RAILWAY. 


the  admiration  of  the  most  finished  connoisseur  of  correct  and  tasteful  archi- 
tecture. No  finer  specimen  of  the  pure  Doric  exists  in  this  country  within 
the  knowledge  of  the  writer.  Perfect  in  proportion,  simple  and  graceful  in 
unity  of  design,  its  exterior  is  accompanied  by  a  fitting  interior  of  lofty 
halls,  broad  passages  and  spacious  chambers.  The  Opera  House  is  a  beau- 
tiful hall,  capable  of  accommodating  over  one  thousand  persons. 

Miscellaneous. 

The  people  of  Wilmington  are  impulsive  and  warm-hearted,  and  hospitality 
to  the  stranger  within  their  gates  is  to  them  an  obligation  as  sacred  as  to 
the  Arab  in  his  tent ;  they  never  seem  so  happy  as  when  welcoming  and 
entertaining  a  convention  or  other  large  assemblage  of  visitors.  Some  of  the 
most  prominent  business  men  of  the  South  are  influential  leaders  in  the  com- 
mercial circles  of  this  community;  and  their  legal  bar,  always  distinguished  for 
ability,  now  numbers   some  of   the  foremost  men  of  the  State. 

The  public  and  private  schools  are  numerous  and  excellent,  the  municipal 
government  is  well  administered,  and  the  financial  condition  of'  the  city 
excellent. 

Excavations  have  been  made  for  the  new  Government  building  on  Front 
Street,  which  will  be  an  imposing  edifice — a  great  accession  to  the  city's  archi- 
tecture. 

At  Wilmington  are  located  the  machine  and  construction  shops  of  the 
Atlantic  Coast  Line  Railroad  (the  most  extensive  in  the  South),  turning 
out  an  immense  amount  of   first-class  work. 

Besides  the  Cape  Fear  and  Yadkin  Valley  Railway,  Wilmington  is  the 
terminus  of  the  Carolina  Central  Railway,  the  Wilmington,  Columbia  and 
Augusta  Railroad,  the  Wilmington  and  Weldon  Branch  of  the  Atlantic  Coast 
Line,  and  the  Wilmington  and  Onslow  Railroad  (projected). 

Agricultural  and  Timber  Resources,  &c. 
Contiguous  to  Wilmington  the  land  is  very  fertile :  a  clayey  soil,  impreg- 
nated with  phosphatic  matter,  ocean  salts,  and  alkalies,  it  was  undoubtedly 
uplifted  b)-  the  ocean  in  ages  past.  With  even  a  slight  admixture  of  organic 
matter,  deeply  plowed  in,  vegetation  is  rendered  luxuriant,  and  nowhere  are 
soil,  climate,  and  atmospheric  conditions  more  favorable  to  the  trucker  and 
market-gardener.  Grapes  are  grown  of  delightful  flavor,  wonderful  size  and 
in  boundless  profusion,  many  of  the  varieties  producing  a  second  crop  during 
the  season.  The  Lower  and  Upper  Cape  Fear  sections  of  the  road  embrace 
portions  of  the  counties  of  New  Hanover,  Brunswick,  Pender,  Sampson, 
Bladen  and  Cumberland,  and  gradually  rise  from  the  sea  level,  by  an  easily 
ascending  champaign,  to   an  altitude  of    a  little   more  than  one    hundred  feet 


CAPE  FEAR  AXD  YADKIN  VALLEY  RAILWAY.  33 

at  Fayetteville.  L}-iiig  direct!)-  upon  the  route  of  the  Hne,  portions  of  the 
country  are  sparse!}'  sett!ed,  tlie  !and  is  t!iin,  and  generous  crops  are  denied 
to  t!ie  farmer.  A!ong  t!ie  water-courses,  liowever — BIac!<;  River,  Cape  Fear 
and  the  creel<s,  \v!iic!i  are  extensive  and  numerous — there  is  a  ric!i  a!!uvia! 
soil,  producing  a  magnificent  yie!d  in  corn  and  cotton.  A!l  this  area  is  sub- 
ject to  overflow  in  seasons  of  continuous  rain  ;  but,  w!ien  spared  tliis  draw- 
back: to  t!ieir  returns,  spiendid  harvests  are  reaped ;  and  nowhere  is  to  be 
found  a  better  system  of  agriculture  than  exists  in  portions  of  the  counties 
grouped  under  this  heading. 

The  flora  oi  this  region  is  varied  and  exuberant;  fifty-four  different  kinds 
of  wood  were  found  by  actual  observation  in  a  piece  of  land  comprising  four 
acres — swamp,  upland,  and  \\'oods.  In  addition  to  dogwood  (used  in  shuttle 
manufacturing),  juniper,  cypress  (the  material  for  the  immense  number  of 
shingles  shipped  from  Wilmington  everj-  year),  poplar,  and  the  white  and  water 
oaks,  recent  ofificial  figures  have  placed  the  amount  of  yellow-heart,  long-leaf 
pine  standing  in  this  section,  exclusive  of  Cumberland,  at  over  one  billion  feet. 

The  completion  of  this  division  of  the  Cape  Fear  and  Yadkin  Valley 
Railway  will  therefore  not  only  give  an  impetus  to  agriculture  and  the  other 
elements  of  material  prosperity,  but  it  will  render  accessible  a  vast  area*  of 
virgin  timber  land  ;  and  the  sawyers  of  wood  and  the  makers  of  lumber — 
the  pioneers  of  new  communities  and  increased  population  with  every  mile 
of  railway  extension  everywhere — will  plant  their  machinery  on  creek,  valle\' 
and  hillside,  to  secure  the  rich  returns  of  these  uncut  forests,  giving  employ- 
ment to  hundreds,  planting  settlements,  building  villages,  and  infusing  new 
life  and  enterprise  into  all  that  section. 

The  farmers  of  these  lower  counties,  notably  Pender,  Sampson  and 
Bladen,  have  alwaj's  devoted  much  attention  to  the  raising  of  fine  stock,  and 
the  yearly  exhibits  of  good  horses,  cattle,  hogs  and  sheep,  at  the  Sampson 
County  Agricultural  Fairs,  attracted  large  crowds,  and  received  favorable  atten- 
tion from  all  parts  of  the  State. 

The  staple  crops  of  this  section  are  diversified  and  valuable :  rice,  peanuts, 
the  early  truck  of  the  market-gardener  (peas,  beans,  lettuce,  radishes,  cucum- 
bers, salads,  asparagas,  &c.),  sorghum  cane  (the  area  in  which  has  greatly 
increased  of  late  years),  corn,  cotton,  oats  and  rye. 

The  grading  and  construction  work  on  the  road-bed  of  the  Eastern 
Division  is  rapidly  approaching  completion — bridge-work,  trestling,  putting 
in  of  culverts,  and  all  the  other  labor  incident  to  placing  the  bed  in  readiness 
for  track-laying;  the  stations,  sidings  and  water-tanks  have  been  nearly  all 
located,  and  it  is  reasonably  certain  that  at  the  date  of  this  publication  track- 
laying  will  have  commenced. 


34  CAPE  FEAR  AND  YADKIS  I'ALLEY  RAILWAY. 


The  Bridge  over  the  Cape  Fear. 

At  Fayetteville,  a  few  hundred  \-ards  below  the  county  bridge,  a  new 
iron  raih'oad  bridge  is  now  constructing  by  the  company — four  iron  spans, 
the  approaches  one  hundred  and  ninet\-  feet  each ;  the  middle  spans  one 
hundred  and  fift_\-  feet  each ;  total  length  of  bridge,  six  hundred  and  eighty 
feet. 

A  single-span  iron  bridge  also  crosses  Black  or  South  River  on  this  route. 

FAYETTEVILLE. 

Here  abides  a  people  with  a  histor}'.  Here  and  there  some  quaint,  old- 
time  building — a  veritable  landmark  of  the  past — tells  of  its  "vanished 
glories;"  in  the  beautiful  cemeter_\',  whose  dead  sleep  to  the  soft  plashing  of 
the  waters  of  Cross  Creek,  the  time-stained  marble  glints  in  the  sunlight,  and 
is  flecked  with  the  shifting  shadows  of  the  swaying  elms,  as  it  perpetuates 
the  names  and  memories  of  the  men  oblivious  now  of  all  the  triumphs 
of  human  achievement,  but  whose  commanding  abilities,  spotless  integrity 
and  untiring  energy  made  the  Faj-etteville  of  the  olden  time  great  in  business 
and  commerce. 

■  Within  a  stone's  throw  of  the  accompanying  illustration  of  Eccles  Park, 
one  finds  the  site  of  the  abode  of  Flora  McDonald,  about  whose  name 
years  but  add  to  the  pleasing  romance  which  softens  the  rugged  lines  of 
history — the  gifted  heroine  inseparably  linked  in  the  records  of  the  past  with 
every  mention  of  the  chivalrous  but  ill-starred  Prince  Charles  Edward,  whose 
devotion  to  the  House  of  Stuart  brought  her  from  the  shores  of  her  native 
country,  nearly  a  century  and  a  half  ago,  to  settle  with  a  little  band  of  friends 
and  adherents,  in  this  quiet,  far-away  spot  in  a  new  and  untried  land.  Not 
a  stone  is  left  of  the  domicile  which  sheltered  this  noble  Scotchwoman  ; 
but  the  spirit  which  inspireil  her  and  the  little  colony  of  followers  has  not 
abandoned  the  valleys  and  the  hills  which  the}'  made  historic  for  all  time;  it 
lives  still  in  the  stiu'diness  of  character,  honesty,  thrift  and  industry  of  their 
descendants,  now  multiplied  into  an  intelligent  population  throughout  the 
counties  of  Cumberland,  Harnett,  Moore,  Richmond  and    Robeson. 

A  Great  Inland  Trade. 

Fifty  years  ago  Fayetteville  controlled  nearly  all  the  inland  trade  of 
North  Carolina,  with  a  large  part  of  that  of  portions  of  Tennessee  and  Vir- 
ginia. The  merchants  of  Wilmington  were  accumulating  fortunes  in  plying 
avast  and  lucrative  business  with  the  West  Indies;  and  the  Cape  Fear  River 
transportation  of  molasses,  sugar,  salt,  iron,  coffee  and  the  goods  of  the  North- 
ern markets,  to  Fayetteville,  the  head  of  its  navigation,  was  immense.     Canvas- 


CAPE  FEAR  AND  YADKIN  VALLEY  RAILWAY.  37 

topped  wagons — drawn  by  two,  four  and  six  horses,  with  jingHng  bells, 
traversing  hundreds  of  miles  from  across  the  Blue  Ridge,  winding  over  the 
red  hills  of  the  rugged  country  about  the  Pilot  and  the  Suaratown  Mount- 
ains— creaked  slowly  and  heavily  on,  to  the  shout  of  driver  and  the  crack 
of  whip,  towards  Fayetteville — the  Mecca  of  trade,  the  El  Dorado  of  mar- 
velous riches  in  merchandise.  These  wagons  were  nearly  all  laden  with  the 
products  of  their  sections — butter,  lard,  bacon,  beeswax,  flour,  hides,  flaxseed, 
back-country  whisky  and  brandy — carrying  back  in  exchange  goods  for  the 
country  merchant  and  for  home  consumption;  and  they  drove  into  the  town 
in  long  lines,  grouping  themselves  about  the  different  places  of  business 
whence  came  the  hum  of  traffic  all  day  and  often  far  into  the  night.  The 
country  tributary  to  Fayetteville  was  networked  with  plank  roads  to  facilitate 
this  great  and  continuous  wagon  travel,  one  line  (the  Western  Plank  Road) 
being  one  hundred  and  twenty  miles  in  length.  But  the  "iron  horse"  was 
more  powerful  than  the  road  wagon,  and  a  very  large  part  of  the  back- 
country  trade  of  Fayetteville  was  diverted  into  otlier  channels,  from  causes 
which  we  need  not  go  far  to  seek. 

Note  here  that  the  Cape  Fear  and  Yadkin  Valley  Railway  system — con- 
ceived in  the  days  of  the  wealth  and  prosperity  of  the  tidewater  and  Upper 
Cape  Fear  section — lays  the  steel  rail  upon  the  disused  old  rut  of  this  remun- 
erative traffic,  and  its  long  trains  bound  with  the  swift  life  of  steam-power 
over  the  route  of  the  slow-toiling  wagon  caravan  ;  from  the  seacoast  to  the 
mountains,  through  some  of  the  best  settlements  and  most  fertile  counties  of 
the  State,  it  is  moving  still  onward,  e\-ery  additional  mile  signalizing  the  wis- 
dom which  had  seized  upon  what  nature  had  blazed  out  for  a  great  high- 
way of  commerce. 

Manufactures. 

Fayetteville  enjoys  the  advantage  of  very  considerable  water-power,  fur- 
nished by  Cross,  Blount's,  Rockfish,  and  Beaver  Creeks,  running  either  imme- 
diately through  the  town  and  its  suburbs  or  the  adjacent  country.  This 
water-power  may  be  immeasurably  increased  (the  matter  has  been  and  is  now 
agitated  by  the  citizens)  by  the  reopening  of  the  old  canal,  giving  an  unlim- 
ited volume  of  water,  with  sufficient  fall,  from  the  Cape  Fear  River,  and 
pursuing  a  system  which  has  recently  achieved  such  wonderful  results  at 
Columbia,  S.  C.  The  old  canal-bed,  some  portions  nearly  intact,  can  be 
traced  from  its  beginning,  a  few  miles  north  of  town,  through  the  environs, 
to  the  original  basin,  near  the  corner  of  Hay  and  Winslow  Streets,  and 
which  the  boys  fifty  years  ago  used  as  a  skating-pond. 


CAPE  FEAR  AND  YADKIN  lALLEY  RAILWAY. 


The  Fayetteville  Cotton  Mills,  located  on  the  site  of  the  old  Mallett  factory, 
only  three-fourths  of  a  mile  from  the  business  centre  of  the  town,  is  one  of  the 
new  manufacturing  enterprises  of  the  progressive  city.  Since  the  organization 
of  the  company,  last  spring,  two  dams  have  been  constructed,  together  with 
factory  building  of  two  stories,  forty-eight  by  one  hundred  feet,  besides  picket- 
house,  offices,  '&c.  All  the  machinery  is  of  the  most  improved  patterns,  pur- 
chased direct  from  the  manufacturers,  and  comprises  sixteen  self-stripping  cards, 
ten  spinning  frames,  two  thousand  and  eighty  spindles,  speeders,  railway 
heads,   &c. 

Commencing  with  a  capital  of  $32,250,  with  the  privilege  of  an  increase  to 
$100,000,  the  success  of  the  company  has  been  very  gratifying  since  its  organi- 
zation. The  energy  of  the  younger  business  men  of  the  community  has  been 
evoked  to  guarantee  its  success,  and  representative  men  of  all  classes  of  the 
population  have  subscribed  of  their  moderate  means  to  the  establishment  of 
this  important  industry  in  their  midst.  It  is  a  most  satisfactory  illustration  of 
what  persistent  and  concerted  effort  can  accomplish  upon  the  basis  of  a  limited 
capital. 

The  Bluff  Mills,  on  Beaver  Creek,  a  three-story  brick  building,  with 
boiler-house,  cotton  storage  warehouse,  &c.,  are  run  by  a  sixty-inch  turbine 
wheel,  and  have  three  thousand  and  fifty-six  spindles  and  sixty-two  looms ; 
they  consume  about  thirteen  hundred  and  forty  pounds  of  cotton  per  day. 
The  mills  produce  thirty-six  hundred  and  twenty-two  yards  of  sheet- 
ing daily;  the  machinery  here  is  also  of  modern  pattern.  The  mills 
employ  a  well-organized  army  of  from  one  hundred  and  fifty  to  one  hundred 
and  sixty  competent  operatives,  who,  with  their  dependencies,  make  up  a 
comfortable  town  of  five  hundred  or  six  hundred  inhabitants.  There  are 
seventeen  hundred  and  thirty-six  acres  of  land  and  fifty  odd  tenement- 
houses  belonging  to  the  factories,  and  two  stores  supply  the  hands  with  the 
necessaries  of  life.  The  mills  turn  out  a  fine  class  of  three-yard  sheetings  and 
Nos.  7  and  10  yarns;  also  cotton  paddings.  The  products  are  very  popular ; 
about  one-half  of  them,  including  all  the  yarns,  are  sold  in  North  Carolina. 
The  New  York  agents  are  Woodward,  Baldwin  &  Co.,  and  in  Baltimore 
Woodward  Baldwin  &  Norris,  through  whose  hands  the  "  Lake  George " 
and  "Lebanon"  4/4  heavy  brown  sheetings  of  the  Beaver  Creek  and  Bluff 
Mills  find  their  way  throughout  the  world.  A  stock  of  these  goods  are 
kept  in   the   store   in   Fayetteville,  where  the  president  has  his  ofificc. 

The  Cumberland  Mills,  situated  on  Beaver  Creek,  adjacent  to  Bluff  Mills, 
comprise  the  main  building  of  four  stories,  fifty  by  one  hundred  feet ;  dye- 
house,  thirty  by  ninety  feet;  lapper-house,  thirty  by  fifty  feet;  store-room, 
twenty  by  fifty  feet.     There    are  eighty-six   looms   and  twenty-eight   hundred 


CAPE  FEAR  AND   YADKIN  VALLEY  RAILWAY.  4 1 

spindles,  run  b}-  one  liundred  and  twenty  horse-power,  and  emplo)-inj^  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty  operatives ;  they  consume  twenty-five  hundred  pounds  raw 
cotton  per  day,  with  a  total  production  of  twenty-seven  hundred  pounds  goods 
daily,  which  consist  of  fine  cottonades,  seamless  bags,  twines  and  carpet  warp. 
These  goods  are  sold  in  New  York,  Philadelphia  and  Cincinnati.  The  labor  is 
all  native,  and,  where  taken  from  the  country  around  and  taught,  not  gen- 
erally satisfactory. 

There  are,  besides,  a  bucket  factory  now  in  successful  operation,  for  the 
manufacture  of  well-buckets,  pails,  tubs,  measures  and  other  articles  of  wooden- 
ware,  to  \\'hich  the  company  expect  to  add  the  machinery  for  making  spokes, 
helves  and  shuttles;  one  of  the  largest  establishments  in  the  South  for 
the  manufacture  of  turpentine  stills  (for  which  they  have  a  lucrative  trade 
all  over  the  Southern  country)  together  with  tobacco  flues ;  a  factory  mak- 
ing turpentine  hacks  and  other  tools,  which  employs  a  large  force  and 
carries  on  an  immense  business ;  a  plow  manufactor}',  supplying  a  large  per- 
centage of  the  farmers  of  all  that  region ;  a  clothing  manufactory,  newly 
established  and  giving  steady  work  to  forty  or  fifty  hands;  a  sash,  blind 
and  door  factory;  two  wood-turning  factories;  one  iron  foundry;  the  exten- 
sive Merchant  flour  and  corn  mills;  three  grist  mills;  one  very  complete  flour 
mill  (patent  roller  process);  one  wool-carding  mill;  one  cotton-seed  oil  mill 
(running  night  and  day  at  the  height  of  the  season);  one  wagon  factory ;  one 
carriage  factory  (known  as  one  of  the  most  extensive  in  the  South);  one 
candy  factory;  two  soda  and  beer  bottling  establishments  ;  one  brick-yard  (very 
extensive) — besides  the  numerous  lumber  and  planing  mills,  cooper  and  black- 
smith shops  demanded  b)'  the  large  and  increasing  business  of  the  community. 

Other  industries  are  projected,  and  stock  has  already  been  taken  for  the 
erection  of  another  cotton  mill.  Increased  interest  in  the  subject  of  manu- 
facturing is  observable  in  the  community,  and  a  realization  of  the  fact  that 
substantial  prosperity  is  proportional  with  the  number  and  extent  of  those 
enterprises  which  give  steady  employment  to  large  numbers  of  people,  supply 
a  self-sustaining,  thrift)'  population,  utilize  the  raw  material  of  our  varied 
products,  and  increase  the  circulation  of  ready  money  with  the  aggregate 
monthly  wages  of  toiling  thousands. 

Here,  too,  are  located  the  shops  of  the  Cape  Fear  and  Yadkin  Valle_\' 
Railway  Company,  which,  enlarged  in  dimensions  and  added  to  in  machiner}- 
and  force  with  the  increasing  needs  of  the  compan}',  now  cover  a  large  area  of 
ground  and  turn  out  an  immense  amount  of  work — ^comfortable  and  beauti- 
fully finished  passenger  cars,  box  and  flat  cars,  &c.,  constructed  under  the 
advantages  of  little  cost  and  great  convenience  accruing  from  the  unlimited 
timber  resources  developed  along  the  line  of  road. 


42  cape  fear  axd  yadkin  valley  railway. 

Mercantile  Business,  &c. 

The  receipts  and  shipments  of  cotton  (exclusive  of  factory  conAunption) 
and  naval  stores  will  aggregate,  in  value,  not  less  than  from  $2,000,000  to 
$2,250,000  per  annum — besides  those  of  the  other  varied  products  of  the 
countr\-  tributary  to  Fayetteville.  The  mercantile  trade  embraces  a  large  scope 
of  territory — much  of  it  fertile  and  very  productive — and  the  volume  of  both 
wholesale  and  retail  business  is  gratifying  and  increasing;  of  the  former — in 
dry  goods,  staple  and  heavy  groceries,  fertilizers,  hardware,  agricultural  imple- 
ments, &c. — Fayetteville  can  boast  of  some  of  the  most  extensive  houses  in 
the  State. 

Attractions  for  Northern  Tourists. 

Fayetteville  is  surrounded  on  all  sides  by  great  forests  of  pine,  with  a 
genial  and  salubrious  climate,  which  is  abundantly  evidenced  by  the  remark- 
ably low  death-rate  of  the  city's  population  and  the  unusual  average  longevity 
of  its  inhabitants,  and  is  rarely  subjected  to  extremities  of  cold,  the  ther- 
mometer during  the  severest  winters  hardly  ever  falling  below  twenty  degrees. 
Especially  is  it  a  pleasant  place  of  sojourn  during  the  spring  months,  so  trying 
in  the  far  South  and  still  held  in  the  grasp  of  winter  at  the  extreme  North. 
Here  nature  bestirs  herself  and  thaws  out  under  the  quickening  effects  of 
soft  winds  and  a  balm}'  atmosphere,  while  summer  comes  on  with  hesitant 
footfall   to  blow   into  full   flower  the  bursting  buds  of  springtime. 

Seekers  after  health  or  pleasure  alike  want  the  comforts,  the  conveniences 
and  the  luxuries  of  life,  and  these  are  supplied  without  stint  at  the  new  Hotel 
La  Fayette.  Spacious  rooms,  with  the  best  modern  furnishing ;  tasteful  parlors 
and  drawing-rooms;  broad  stair  and  hall  ways;  cosy  balconies;  a  delightfully 
situated  dining-room  ;  comfortable  offices  and  billiard  tables — all  combine  to 
offer  the  best  features  of  first-rate  hotel  entertainment.  As  to  the  table,  there 
is  no  appeal  from  the  unerring  judgment  of  the  traveling  public;  and  this 
"autocrat  of  the  (dinner)  table,"  headed  by  that  affable  boii  vivaiit,  the 
"drummer,"  sounds  everywhere  the  praises  of  the  kitchen  and  larder  of  the 
Hotel  La  Fayette. 

Ihe  town  and  its  suburbs  (notably  incomparable  Haymount)  afford  many 
delightful  drives  and  rides,  diversified  by  level  roadways,  picturesque  streams, 
and  bits  of  exquisite  scenery. 

Characteristics  of  the  People,  &c. 

Fayetteville  has  lost  much  of  the  quaint  and  picturesque  in  streets  and 
buildings  which  so  charmed  the  visitor  in  past  years.     The  iron  front  and  the 


CAPE  FEAR  AND  VADKIN  VALLEY  RAILWAY.  45 

mansard  roof  have  displaced  the  plain  brick  \\all  and  flat  roof  which  made  up 
whole  blocks  of  stores,  pierced  by  archways  and  corridors  to  the  gloomy 
warehouses  in  the  rear,  and  reminding  one  of  nothing  so  much  as  the  archi- 
tecture of  the  benign  and  simple  rule  of  the  Missions  on  the  Pacific  coast. 

The  market-house  remains  almost  alone  to  tell  of  how  they  put  together 
and  ornamented  brick  and  mortar  when  this  centurj-  was  young.  The  illus- 
tration conveys  better  than  description  an  idea  of  its  perfect  proportion,  grace 
and  symmetry.  The  town  hall  surmounts  the  market  proper,  and  the  building 
occupies  a  broad  plaza  at  the  intersection  of  the  four  main  business  thor- 
oughfares. 

But  there  is  much  of  the  old  town  in  the  present  generation.  Clannish,  as 
befits  their  Scotch-Irish  stock,  the  people  are  nevertheless  open-handed  and 
generous;  they  are  cultured  without  ostentation,  and  gifted  with  the  simple 
refinement  of  nature.  The  uprightness  and  integrity  of  its  men,  and  the  beauty 
and  virtue  of  its  women,  fail  not  yet  to  uphold  the  ancient  prestige  of  the 
venerable  town. 

Miscellaneous. 

The  people  of  Fayetteville  have  ever  been  keenly  alive  to  the  importance  of 
utilizing  to  the  fullest  extent  all  the  educational  advantages  vouchsafed  to  them, 
and  in  past  years  some  of  the  best  and  most  thorough  high  schools  of  the  State 
have  been  there  located.  Though  there  are  still  several  private  schools  in  dif- 
ferent sections  of  the  city,  well  patronized,  as  well  as  a  large  and  flourishing 
kindergarten,  the  graded  school  system  now  absorbs  a  large  percentage  of  the 
children  of  Fayetteville.  The  building  is  situated  on  Haymount,  the  western 
suburb  of  the  town,  and,  with  ten  departments  and  an  efficient  corps  of 
teachers,  offers  to  the  community  fine  educational  facilities.  An  excellent 
public  librar}-  elevates  and  refines  the  literary  taste  of  the  people,  while  ten 
churches  for  white  and  colored  invite  the  different  denominations  to  the  worship 
of  God. 

A  merchants"  and  cotton  exchange,  with  a  numerous  membership,  with, 
ample  facilities  for  handling,  weighing,  grading  and  storing  cotton,  &c.,  gives 
compactness  and  concert  of  action  to  the  business  interests  of  the  community, 
and  ample  banking  facilities  demanded  by  the  increasing  mercantile  and  manu- 
facturing operations  are  furnished  by  one  State  and  one  National  bank. 

On  the  banks  of  a  beautiful  stream,  Cross  Creek,  which  winds  its  way  with 
graceful  curve  through  the  most  beautiful  part  of  the  city,  crossed  here  and 
there  by  handsome  bridges,  is  Eccles  Park,  with  gaily-painted  boats,  handsome 
boat-houses,  grounds  for  croquet  and  other  out-door  pastimes.  In  pleasant 
weather  it   is  a  place  of  popular  resort,   and   the  stream,   alive   with   boating 


46  CAPE  FEAR  AND  YADKIN  VALLEY  RAILWAY. 

parties,  and  the  lawns  thronged  with  ladies  and  children,  present  an  attractive 
and  animated  scene. 

Including  all  the  suburbs  which  actually  merge  into  the  corporate  limits, 
Fayetteville  contains  a  population  of  about  six  thousand,  though  it  is  credited 
with  much  less  by  the  last  census. 

At  the  last  legislature  a  charter  was  obtained  for  a  street-railw^ay,  which 
the  extended  area  of  the  place  renders  desirable  and  expedient. 

The  Wilson  Short  Cut,  a  branch  of  the  Atlantic  Coast  Line,  has  its  present 
terminus  at   this  point. 

Cape  Fear  River  transportation  of  freight  and  passengers  by  steamer  to 
Wilmington  and  intermediate  points  has  always  been  an  important  factor  in 
the  commerce  of  Fa\-etteville,  and  has  been  the  main  channel  for  the  receipt  of 
heavy  articles  of  merchandise.  The  steamers  are  comfortable,  and  the  voj-age 
of  one  hundred  and  twelve  miles  to  Wilmington  pleasant.  The  boating  busi- 
ness on  the  river  has  recently  been  almost  entirel)'  consolidated  into  one 
company. 

The  rich  bottoms  of  the  Cape  Fear  River  produce  immense  crops  of  corn 
and  forage,  and  the  land  contiguous  to  Fayetteville — undulating,  light,  sandy 
loam,  with  cla}-  subsoil,  and  well  watered — is  well  adapted  to  truck-farming, 
fruit-raising  and  the  growth  of  grapes. 

A  large  floral  nursery  in  the  suburbs  of  the  city  and  several  fruit  nurseries 
in  the  adjacent  country  are  among  the  profitable  industries  at  this  point. 

About  four  miles  north  of  Fayetteville  is  Tokay  Vineyard  (one  hundred 
and  forty-seven  acres),  one  of  the  largest,  and  certainl}',  in  the  number  of  \'ari- 
eties  of  grapes  and  other  fruit  cultivated,  the  most  interesting,  east  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains.  Here  the  Scuppernong,  very  luxuriant  of  growth  and  prolific 
of  yield,  occupies  many  acres  of  the  vine\'ard  ;  the  remainder  of  the  area  is 
devoted  to  the  cultivation  of  the  different  trellised  table  grapes  and  other 
fruits — peaches,  pears,  melons,  &c.  Ample  cellarage,  presses,  gas-house,  store- 
houses, &c.,  render  Tokay  Vineyard  complete  in  every  respect  ;  while  the  ele- 
gant mansion  of  the  proprietor,  grounds  beautifully  laid  off  and  adorned  with 
statuary,  pleasant  walks  and  drives,  make  it  one  of  the  "  show  places"  of  the 
State,  which  the  Faj'etteville  people  take  a  pride  in  showing  to  the  stranger. 
The  vintage  of  Tokaj-  amounts  to  about  forty  thousand  or  fift}-  thousand 
gallons  of  wine  per  annum — Scuppernong,  Concord,  Delaware,  &c. — besides 
which  great  quantities  of  table  grapes  are  shipped  abroad. 


<i)oUtl]ern  te)iVt5ion. 

Fayetteville  TO  Bennettsville,  s.  c— Fifty-seven  miles. 


HE    completion    of   the    Southern    Division   of  the  Cape    Fear  and 
Yadkin  Valley    Raihva\',  a  little  more   than    four  years  since,  has 
been  attended   by  very  beneficent   results,  not  only  in  the  largely 
increased  traffic  enjoyed  by  the  road,  but  in  a  still  greater  measure 
y  the  opening   out  and  development  of  a  country  especially  rich  in  agricul- 
tural and  forestry  resources. 

This  division   traverses  Cumberland,    Robeson  and   Richmond  counties    in 

his  State,  and  Marlboro  count)',   S.  C,  to  Bennettsville,  a   distance  of  fifty- 

^■ven   miles,  and  places  accessible  to   market   one  billion   three  hundred   and 

"ty  million  feet  of  yellow-heart   long-leaf  pine,  besides  almost  inexhaustible 

ipplies  of  maple,  poplar,  juniper,  cypress  and  other  useful  woods. 

After  leaving  the  sand-hills  and  Big  Rockfish,  a  few  miles  out  from   Fay- 

.  teville,  the  traveler  surveys  a  fine  farming  country  clear  on  to  Bennettsville, 

elding  excellent  crops  of  corn,  sorghum  and  cotton,  with  a  thrifty  population, 

i'lostly  of  Scotch-Irish  extraction  (in  the  North  Carolina  counties),  and  quick 

t-  seize  upon  all  the  advantages  and  opportunities  vouchsafed  to  them. 

A    great    impetus    has  been    given    to  the    production    of    naval    stores   by 

is    southern   extension,   and    the    cutting  of   timber   and    sawing   of    lumber 

ve  grown  into  a  business  of  vast  extent.    The  pufifing  engines  of  the  mills 

;et  one  at   every  station,  and  the  forests  resound,  as  the  train   speeds  along, 

^th  the  axe  of  the  woodman.     Timber  trains  are  frequently  carried  into  Fay- 

:eville  requiring  the  pulling  power  of  two  large  engines,  and  the  freight-books 

''  the  company  show  that  the  business  is  steadily  increasing.     It  is  a  gratifying 

i.:t,  as  showing  the  general  thrift  and  prosperity  of  the  State,  that  compara- 

i.  ely  little  of  this  lumber   is  shipped  out  of  North  Carolina — all  the  orders 

ming  to  the  millers  that  they  can  possibly  fill  from  nearer  home,  the  Piedmont 

:  .;tion  constituting  a  very  large  and  important  customer. 

Hope  jMills. 

At  the  first  station,  seven  miles  from  Fayetteville,  are  situated  the  large 
;  I' tories  of  the  Hope  Mills  Manufacturing  Company,  of  which  is  appended 
t!u:  following  description  : — 

No.  I  mill,  brick  building,  two  hundred  and  eighty-five  feet  by  fifty  feet ; 
■  >;ie-half  two  stories,  and  one-half  three  stories  high.     Dye-house  one  hundred 

(49) 


50  CAPE  FEAR  AND  YADKIN  VALLEY  RAILUAY. 

and  ten  feet  by  thirty  feet ;  modem  machinery.  Dry-house  twenty  feet  by 
thirty  feet;  modern  machinery.  Spreader-room  and  machine-shop,  thirty  feet 
by  sixty-six  feet ;  two  stories. 

Mill  fitted  up  \\ith  Kitson  compound  spreaders,  twenty-eiglit  roller  cards 
and  railroad  heads,  six  drawing  frames  (American  make),  two  slubber  and  five 
fly  frames  (Higgins'  make),  fifty-six  hundred  Excelsior  spinning  spindles,  spool- 
ers and  reels,  circular  warper,  one  Denn  double-head  double-linker  electric-stop 
warper,  six  twisters  and  four  beaming  machines,  one  hundred  and  ninety  box 
looms — twenty-two  of  these  are  sixteen  harness.  All  the  machinery  is  in  first- 
class  condition.  Goods  made — cottonades  and  cheviots.  Help  good  and  well- 
behaved. 

The  company  have  fifty  houses  in  No.  i  village,  also  saw-mill  and  store. 
The  village  contains  two  churches  and  one  schoolhouse. 

Mill  is  fitted  up  with  Grennell  sprinklers  and  first-class  fire-pump,  and 
is  run  entirely  by  water,  of  which  there  is  a  full  supply. 

Hope  Mills  No.  2,  situated  about  a  mile  and  a  half  south  of  No.  i  village, 
is  an  entirely  new  mill  and  village,  all  built  within  the  last  twelve  months. 
The  mill  is  three  hundred  and  forty-six  feet  long  by  sixty  feet  wide,  two 
stories  high,  and  is  filled  with  the  very  latest  improved  machineiy.  It  will  be 
run  entirely  by  water,  of  which  there  is  an  abundance. 

The  spreader-room  will  contain  one  cotton  opener  and  preparer  and  four 
loppers  (Potter  &  Atherton's),  card-room,  twenty  revolving  flat  cards  (Platte's, 
English  make),  Howard  &  Bullock  electric-stop  drawing  frames  (Providence 
machine),  a  slubber  and  fly  frames. 

The  spinning-room  contains  nine  thousand  Whitin's  gravity  spindles,  Hope- 
dale  upright  spoolers,  Denn's  double-head  electric-stop  warper. 

The  weave-room  contains  Wood's  reels,  winders,  and  beaming  frames,  and 
Knowles'  looms.  Shafting,  hangers  and  pulleys  furnished  by  W.  Sellers  &  Co., 
Philadelphia,  and  water-wheel  by  the  Holyoke  Company. 

This  mill  will  be  lighted  by  electricity,  and  is  also  fitted  up  with  the  Gren- 
nell fire  system.  Also  has  powerful  pump  with  outside  hydrants.  It  is  now 
about  ready  to  operate ;  will  manufacture  fine  }'arns  and  fine  ginghams.  The 
structure  is  built  of  brick. 

The  village  contains  sixty  well-built  houses,  all  nicely  painted.  The  water 
is  first  rate,  and  the  location  healthy. 

The  capital  of  the  Hope  Mills   Manufacturing  Company  is  $300,000. 

RED    SPRINGS. 

No  point  on  the  line  of  the  road  can  show  a  more  rapid  growth,  with 
a   consequent    increase   in  population,  business  and  industries,  than  this  thriv- 


CAPE  FEAR  AXD  YADKIN  VALLEY  RAILWAY.  53 

ing  village.  Five  years  since  Red  Springs  was  a  little  settlement  in  the 
woods;  now  it  is  a  fair  town  on  the  highway  of  railway  travel,  with  several 
stores,  two  hotels,  an  excellent  newspaper,  mills,  cooper  and  blacksmith  shops, 
&c.  Then  the  inmates  of  one  or  two  families  made  up  the  sum  of  its  inhab- 
itants ;  now  it  numbers  its  population  by  the  hundreds,  with  church  and 
school  facilities  rarely  enjoyed  by  a  place  of    its  size. 

There  are  ten  saw  and  planing  mills,  including  a  sash,  blind  and  door 
factory  within  the  limits  of  the  corporation  or  in  the  immediate  vicinity, 
which  together  employ  over  two  hundred  and  forty  hands  (representing,  with 
the  average  per  capita  of  families,  a  population  of  about  one  thousand,  sup- 
ported by  these  industries),  and   pay  out  from  $700  to  §800  per  week  in  wages. 

Private  enterprise  has  also  here  built  a  narrow-gauge  railroad  through  the 
heart  of  the  pine  forest,  for  the  saving  of  time,  labor  and  money  in  hauling 
the  logs  to  the  mills,  and  it  has  also  been  eagerly  utilized  by  the  farmers  of 
the  vicinity  in  getting  their  products  to  market. 

Red  Springs  derives  its  name  from  that  which  invested  it  with  interest 
and  importance  among  the  people  of  this  section  of  the  State  long  before 
the  days  of  railroads  :  its  chalybeate  springs  of  iron  in  solution,  very  highly 
charged,  magnesia  and  sulphur.  Their  medicinal  virtues  have  been  thoroughly 
tested  and  long  known,  and  the  increase  of  visitors  to  enjoy  for  the  season 
the  healthful  waters  of  these  exhaustless  fountains  is  notable  eveiy  j-ear. 
The  springs  (of  which  there  are  two)  are  unlimited  in  supply,  and  apparently 
have  no  bottom,  for  the  "  longest  pole  "  in  all  the  country  around  has  never 
yet  succeeded  in  making  "  soundings." 

MAXTON. 

Prior  to  the  change  of  its  name  on  application  of  its  citizens,  this  place 
rejoiced  in  the  curious  appellation  of  Shoe  Heel.  This,  we  may  reasonably 
infer,  from  the  Scotch  element  predominating  so  largely  in  Robeson  county, 
was  a  corruption  of  Ouhelc,  a  clan  exterminated  in  pitched  battle  by  the 
Clan  Chattan  during  the  reign  of  Robert  of  Scotland,  and  immortalized  in 
Scott's  romance  of  the  "  Fair  Maid  of  Perth."  Maxton  is  a  flourishing  town, 
and  is  destined  to  acquire  additional  impprtance  from  its  favored  position 
as  the  trade  centre  of  the  rich  agricultural  communities  of  Richmond  and 
Robeson  counties,  and  a  considerable  scope  of  country  in  South  Carolina. 
The  shipments  of  naval  stores  and  cotton  are  very  large,  and  the  business  of 
general  merchandising  is  steadily  on  the  increase. 

Maxton  is  an  unusually  intelligent  community,  marked  by  great  refinement 
in  its  social  circle,  and  enjoys  exceptional  religious  and  educational  advantages. 


54  CAPE  FEAR  AND   YADKIN  VALLEY  RAILWAY. 

The  population  is  now  about  seven  hundred,  the  rate  of  increase  being  very 
great  within  the  past  four  years.  It  is  at  the  intersection  of  the  Cape  Fear  and 
Yadkin  Valley  and  Carolina  Central  Railways. 

BENNETTSVILLE. 

Bennettsville  is  the  county-seat  of  Marlboro,  S.  C,  one  of  the  best  cotton- 
producing  counties  in  the  State,  ranking  second  in  the  amount  of  its  annual 
crop.  The  land  almost  verifies  the  description  of  "  level  as  a  floor,"  and  farm- 
ing is  done  still  on  almost  the  grand  scale  of  the  days  prior  to  the  war. 
The  planters  "  pitch  "  for  big  crops  and  fertilize  extensively  even  the  naturally 
rich  soil  of  heavy  loam  subsoiled  with  clay.  A  part  of  the  county  furnishes 
excellent  grazing,  abundantly  evidenced  by  the  number  of  fine  cattle,  farm 
horses  and  mules,  and  blooded  stock  for  riding  and  driving. 

Bennettsville,  since  the  completion  of  the  road  in  December,  1884,  has 
enjoyed  exceptional  prosperity.  An  industrious  population  has  been  attracted 
thither  for  the  purpose  of  engaging  in  mercantile  business,  rendered  profitable 
by  the  impetus  given  to  agriculture,  to  invest  in  property  or  engage  in  indus- 
trial enterprises.  The  people  are  proud  of  their  town,  and  are  admirably 
sustained  in  this  feeling  by  a  good  municipal  government.  They  are  liberal 
supporters  of  churches  and  schools,  of  which  the  consequence  is  a  moral  and 
law-abiding  community. 

A  prosperous  banking  establishment  meets  the  needs  of  this  enterprising 
business  community,  and  a  charter  has  been  obtained  for  the  establishment 
of   a  cotton  factory. 

The  court-house  is  a  very  fine  structure,  of  unique  but  attractive  style  of 
architecture,  occupying  the  centre  of  a  spacious  square  fronting  the  business 
part  of   the  town,  with  an  interior  admirably  arranged  and  fitted  up. 

The  contemplated  extension  of  the  Southern  Division  of  the  Cape  Fear 
and  Yadkin  Valley  Railway  to  Camden  Junction  offers  comparatively  few 
difificulties  in  engineering  after  bridging  and  crossing  the  Pee  Dee,  will  in- 
crease the  tributary  area  of  rich  farming  territory,  and  will  furnish  important 
railroad  connection  with  lines  running  south,  via  the  Three  C's,  South 
Carolina  and   Wilmington  and  Columbia   Railroads. 

INTERMEDIATE    STATIONS. 

Lumber  Bridge,  McNatt's,  Shandon,  Wakulla,  Floral  College,  John's, 
Hasty,  McColl's,  and  Tatum's  are  all  busy  and  important  stations  on  the 
line  of  the  Southern  Division,  plying  a  brisk  trade  in  general  country  mer- 
chandise, and  making  large  shipments  of  cotton,  naval  stores,  timber,  lum- 
ber, &c.      In   the   cotton   season   the  freight  receipts  on  this  part  of    the  road 


CAPE  FEAR  AND  YADKIN  VALLEY  RAILWAY. 


57 


necessitate  all  the  dispatch  possible  in  moving  the  crop,  and  frequently  tax 
the  rolling  stock  to  its  full  capacity.  Exclusive  of  Wilmington,  Bennetts- 
ville  ranks  third  among  the  stations  on  the  Cape  Fear  and  Yadkin  Valley  as 
a  shipping  point. 

Fayetteville  is  now  enjoying  a  splendid  trade  from  this  Southern  Divis- 
ion. The  merchants  of  Lumber  Bridge,  McNatt's,  Shandon,  John's  and  the 
other  stations  above  mentioned  in  South  Carolina  are  prompt-paying  and 
valuable  customers  for  large  orders  in  dry  goods,  staple  groceries,  fertilizens 
and  general  merchandise.  Even  in  the  former  days  of  inland  and  wagon, 
trade,  the  business  of  Fayetteville,  gathered  from  Robeson,  Richmond  and 
South  Carolina,  was  more  profitable  than  that  of  the  western  country,  as  the 
cotton  brought  to  market  by  the  farmers  and  planters  of  that  section  always 
commanded  ready  money,  while  the  western  commodities — hides,  tallow,  but- 
ter, flaxseed  and  other  grain — were  exchanged,  in  barter,  for  the  articles  car- 
ried back  for  home  consumption. 

Few  persons  would  recognize  the  city  of  to-day  with  the  town  of  ten 
years  ago.  One  side  of  Person  Street  has  been  almost  entirely  rebuilt  with 
fine  brick  edifices,  while  Hay  Street  is  a  picture  of  architectural  beauty, 
from  Donaldson  Street  to  Market  Square.  The  taste  of  the  householder 
and  real  estate  owner  has  kept  pace  with  this  business  enterprise,  and  the 
suburbs  are  beautified  by  many  elegant  and  tasteful  residences. 


COURT-HOUSE,  GREENSBORO,  N.  C. 


Upper  ©Oipe  "p'ear  ©,nel  te)eep  t^iVer  "©ivi^ion. 

From  fayetteville  to  Greensboro— ninety-seven  miles. 


^B>^'S^ig|HTS  division  leads  through  the  counties  of  Cumberland,  Harnett, 
Moore,  Chatham,  Randolph  and  Guilford  to  Greensboro,  at  the 
junction  of  the  North  Carolina  Railroad  with  the  Richmond  and 
Danville.  The  hill  countrj'  now  succeeds  with  the  route  of  the 
line  inland,  and  \ery  rapidly  after  leaving  Gulf,  an  altitude  being  reached  at 
Greensboro,  eight  hundred  and  fifty  feet  above  sea  level,  about  seven  hundred 
and  fifty  feet  higher  than  that  at  Fayetteville,  more  than  two-thirds  of  which 
elevation  is  attained  in  a  distance  of  fifty  miles. 

Fayetteville  is  the  centre  of  a  large  extent  of  countr)',  embracing  part  of 
Cumberland,  the  counties  of  Robeson  and  Richmond  on  the  south  and  south- 
west, and  Moore  and  Harnett  on  the  west  and  northwest,  which  has  been  for 
many  years  one  of  the  great  naval-stores-producing  sections  of  the  South,  and 
Fayetteville  was  second  only  to  Wilmington  in  the  exportation  of  this  great 
commercial  staple.  At  one  time  there  might  be  counted  in  the  environs  of  the 
city  twenty-eight  turpentine  distilleries,  working  on  full  time  throughout  the 
season.  With  the  lapse  of  years  much  of  the  virgin  pine  has  of  course  been 
boxed,  but  vast  tracts  of  uncut  long-leaf  still  lie  in  easy  access  of  the  road. 
Similar  in  some,  but  not  in  all  respects,  to  the  soil  of  the  Southern  and  Eastern 
Divisions,  the  light  loams  and  clayey  loams  of  the  upper  Cape  Fear  continue 
for  about  one-third  of  the  distance  embraced  in  this  division,  after  ^\•hich  the 
country  changes  entirely  in  soil,  topography  and  geological  formation.  The 
gray  soil  intermixed  with  gravel,  and  the  red  and  dark-colored  soils  of  the  re- 
gion of  slate  and  granite,  appear.  The  country  is  broken  and  rugged,  and  on 
all  sides  crop  out  evidences  of  the  existence  of  extensive  and  valuable  mineral 
deposits ;  the  long-leaf  pine  disappears,  and  the  oak  forests  supenene,  very  fine 
bodies  of  which  extend  along  Deep  River,  and  on  both  sides  of  the  railway  line 
to  Greensboro.  Walnut,  hickoiy  and  dogwood  also  abound  along  the  route, 
extensive  shipments  of  which  are  being  made  by  different  individuals  and 
companies. 

Minerals. 

Mention  has  already  been  made  of  the  coal  mines  of  this  region,  and  the 

matter  will  be  more  specifically  treated  farther  on.     As  to  the  quality  of  the 

(6i) 


62  CAPE  FEAR  AND  YADKIN  VALLEY  RAILWAY. 

coal,  the  highest  geological  authority  has  pronounced  it  "  well  adapted  for  fuel, 
cooking,  gas,  and  oil.  It  is  a  shining,  clear  coal,  resembling  the  best  specimens 
of  Cumberland.  It  ignites  easily,  burns  with  a  bright,  clear  combustion,  and 
leaves  a  very  light  purplish-gray  ash.  It  swells  and  agglutinates,  making  a 
hollow  fire.  It  yields  a  shining  and  very  porous  coke,  and  is  an  excellent  coal 
for  making  gas  or  for  burning."  (Report  of  Admiral  Wilkes  to  the  Secretary 
of  the  Navy.)  Lying  along  these  coal  beds  are  deposits  of  ball-iron  ore,  as  well 
as  other  ore  'beds  along  the  line  of  railway  or  in  the  vicinity  within  an  area  of 
twenty  by  forty  miles;  A  geological  report  of  Professor  Emmons  gives  the 
general  character  of  these  ores : — 

Sesquioxide  of  iron 69.73      67.50       

Protoxide  of  iron 0.84       47- 5° 

Phosphoric  acid 06       

Sulphur 09       3.39 

Carbon 3i-30      34-00 

But  of  all  the  mineral  deposits  of  this  region  the  most  valuable  ore  bed  is 
found  at  Ore  Hill.  The  veins  seem  to  be  without  limit,  several  being  from 
fifteen  to  eighteen  feet  in  thickness.  Many  of  these  veins  have  been  opened 
and  worked  at  various  times,  producing  mainly  limonite  ore.  It  makes  an  ex- 
cellent, tough  iron,  being  porous  and  easily  smelted.  From  samples  selected  by 
the  late  Professor  Kerr,  State  Geologist,  out  of  a  heap  of  several  hundred  tons, 
the  following  analyses  are  by  Genth  and  Hanna : — 

Silica 1.42  3-79 

Oxide  of  iron 82.02  83. So 

Lime  and  magnesia   1.30       

Phosphorus 00       

■  Sulphur 00  .44 

Professor  Kerr  says  :  "  The  purity  of  this  ore  'is  conspicuous,  and  the  quan- 
tity seems  to  be  very  great." 

Lying  some  distance  farther  up  Deep  River  are  outcropping  beds  of  mag- 
netic, and,  in  one  or  two  instances,  specular,  iron  ore,  which  during  the  civil  war 
were  worked  with  gratifying  results,  producing  iron  of  superior  quality. 

Between  Sanford  and  Egypt  red  and  gray  sandstone,  and  a  little  farther 
west  granite,  exist  in  large  quantities.  These  stones  are  already  being  quarried, 
and  their  demand  for  building  purposes  will  steadily  increase  with  the  present 
facilities  of  transportation  and  the  rapid  progress  of  the  country. 

In  Moore  county  a  very  superior  quality  of  mill  stone  is  found  in  immense 
strata,  bath  on  upper  Little  River  and  at  the  extensive  works  of  Parkewood,  on 


CAPE  FEAR  AND  YADKIN  VALLEY  RAILWAY.  65 

Deep  River,  and  "  Moore  County  grit "  is,  without  exaggeration,  favorably 
known  the  whole  countr>'  over. 

Soapstone  is  found  at  various  points  in  the  upper  part  of  Moore  and  along 
the  line  of  Chatham  counties.  These  beds  were  successfulh"  worked  \-ears  ago, 
and  constituted  a  profitable  industry  to  that  section.  The  demand  for  soap- 
stone  in  the  great  markets  of  the  world  is  practically  limitless,  and,  accessible 
as  the  railway  has  now  made  these  quarries,  we  may  expect  them  to  be  soon 
again  in  active  operation.  A  bed  of  soapstone,  which  promises  to  be  quite  valu- 
able, has  recently  been  discovered  in  Guilford  count)'. 

Capital  seeking  investment  will  gradually  realize  the  value  of  the  gold 
mines  of  Moore  and  Randolph,  which,  imperfectly  worked  before  the  war  with- 
out the  present  improved  mechanical  appliances,  yielded  in  man\-  cases  very 
satisfactory  returns. 

Water-Power. 

A  recenth'  published  descriptive  gazette  of  the  Cape  Fear  and  Yadkin 
Valley  Railwaj-  says  of  the  manufacturing  enterprises  located  upon  Deep 
River:  "The  Deep  River  factories,  so  located  that  a  common  terminal  point 
will  place  the  most  remote  within  four  miles  of  the  branch  line,  are  the  Frank- 
linville,  Cedar  Falls,  Randolph,  J.  M.  Worth,  Randleman,  Naomi,  Columbia, 
"Central  Falls,  and  Enterprise  Manufacturing  Companies — nine  mills,  twenty- 
four  thousand  six  hundred  and  sixty-eight  spindles,  six  hundred  and  ninety- 
six  looms,  ninet}'-one  carders,  emplo)-ing  twelve  hundred  operatives,  consum- 
ing seventeen  thousand  pounds  of  raw  cotton  per  da}-,  and  freighting  in  and 
out  thirty-seven  thousand  pounds  of  raw  material,  supplies,  merchandise  and 
manufactured  goods  daily.  These  factories  feed  and  clothe  four  thousand 
persons."  A  competent  authorit\-  has  estimated  the  full  water-power  of 
Deep  River  at  nine  hundred  and  fift)'  thousand  spindles,  and  of  the  Cape 
Fear  River,  above  Fa}'etteville,  at  two  million,  making  a  total  of  three  mill- 
ion spindles,  all  within  the  scope  of  less  than  eighty  miles  of  the  road, 
embraced  entirely  in  the  Upper  Cape  Fear  and  Deep  River  Division. 

The  Deep  River  factories,  since  the  date  of  the  above  estimate,  exhibit  a 
very  gratifying  increase  in  the  value  of  plants  and  machiner\-,  extent  of  oper- 
ations, output  of  goods,  &c.  The  number  of  mills  remains  the  same,  a  new 
factor}'  having  been  erected  and  one  removed  to  another  point  on  the  line  of 
road.  The  looms  have  been  increased  from  six  hundred  and  ninet}'-six  to 
one  thousand  and  twent}--eight,  the  carders  to  over  one  hundred,  while  there 
has  been  an  addition  of  about  fifteen  per  cent,  to  the  force  of  employes. 
The  freighting  in  and  out  of  raw  material,  &c.,  has  advanced  from  thirty- 
seven  thousand  to  about   fifty  thousand    pounds    daily,    with    a    corresponding 


66  CAPE  FEAR  AND  YADKIN  VALLEY  RAILWAY. 

augmentation  of  raw  cotton  consumed.     All  the  mills  are    supplied  with   the 
latest  improvements,  and  nearlj-  all  lighted  by  electricity. 

Agricultural  Products. 

The  farm  products  of  this  division  are  varied  and  important,  and  com- 
prise cotton,  corn,  oats,  wheat,  rye,  sorghum  cane,  Irish  and  sweet  potatoes, 
fine  cabbage,  onions,  &c.,  &c. 

MANCHESTER    MILLS. 

At  the  first  station  west  of  Fayetteville  are  the  ^lanchester  jNIills,  occu- 
pying a  building  two  hundred  and  twenty-five  by  forty  feet,  and  running 
nineteen  hundred  spindles  and  fifty-five  plaid  looms.  The  mills  manufacture 
plaids  and  stripes,  which  are  sold  all  over  North  and  South  Carolina  and 
Virginia.  There  is  a  forty  horse-power  of  water  with  a  sixt}-  horse-power 
engine. 

McFADYEN    SPRINGS. 

In  the  vicinity  of  Manchester,  lying  upon  Little  River,  are  the  McFadyen 
Springs,  enjoying  a  very  enviable  reputation  in  all  the  adjacent  country  for 
the  remarkable  medicinal  efficacy  of  their  waters  in  the  cure  of  cutaneous 
and  scrofulous  diseases,  and  the  alleviation  of  all  liver  complaints  and  ail-- 
ments  growing  out  of  dyspepsia  and  disordered  stomach.  So  strongly  im-' 
pregnated  are  these  waters  with  the  chemical  constituents  which  make  up 
their  analysis  that  the  wet  earth  at  the  bottom  of  the  spring  and  on  its 
sides  is  used  with  wonderful  effect  as  a  plaster  in  eruptions,  sores,  &c.  The 
]SIcFad\-en  Springs  have  been  little  advertised ;  and,  even  with  the  present 
railroad  facilities,  no  effort  has  been  made  to  bring  them  into  public  notice. 
The  accommodations  are  very  rude  and  primitive — simply  a  few  cabins,  which 
are  used  by  Fayetteville  families  and  those  in  the  vicinity;  but  in  coming 
years  JMcFadyen  Springs  will  doubtless  attain  the  prominence  which  they 
deserve. 

Spout  Spring  and  Swann's  Stations  are  thriving  points  on  the  line,  the 
former  the  centre  of  a  great  lumber  milling  business,  and  the  latter  making 
large  shipments  of  naval  stores. 

JONESBORO. 

The  traveler  greets  this  gladly  as  one  of  the  most  attractive  towns  on  the 
line  of  the  Cape  Fear  and  Vadkin  Valley  Rail\va\-,  presenting  an  appear- 
ance of  thrift  and  prosperity,  with  its  neat  residences,  numerous  stores  and 
church  spires  and  school  belfries,    which    is    very  inviting.       Long  established 


CAPE  FEAR  A.XD   VADAV.V  lALLEY  RA/LIVAV.  69 

as  a  trading  point  for  a  prosperous  section,  Jonesboro  has  of  late  years  be- 
come quite  an  important  cotton  market,  receiving  and  shipping  large  quantities 
of  the  staple  every  season.  The  cultivation  of  bright  yellow  leaf  tobacco 
has  also  been  largely  entered  into  by  the  farmers  of  Moore  county,  which 
the  progressive  spirit  of  the  place  has  met  by  the  erection  of  two  commo- 
dious tobacco  warehouses. 

A  few  weeks  ago  a  very  important  forward  step  was  taken  in  manufac- 
turing by  enterprising  citizens  of  the  community,  by  the  establishment  of  a 
cotton  mill,  with  complete  plant,  improved  machinery,  &c.,  for  the  manufac- 
ture of  yarns  and  carpet  fillings. 

There  is  a  banking  establishment  to  meet  mercantile  and  other  demands, 
wagon  and  bugg)'  factory,  a  good  newspaper,  with  many  other  adjuncts  of  a 
flourishing  communit}-.  The  people  are  moral  and  law-abiding,  and  pay 
special  attention  to  the  support  of  their  churches  and  schools. 

SANFORD. 

Sanford  is  at  the  intersection  of  the  Cape  Fear  and  Yadkin  Valley  and 
Raleigh  and  Augusta  Air-Line  Railroads,  whence  connection  is  made  with 
Charlotte,  Wilmington,  and  Raleigh.  The  town  draws  a  lucrative  trade 
from  the  rich  farming  segments  of  three  counties  lying  in  a  corner,  and  has, 
besides,  sash  and  door  factory,  marble  works,  and  several  other  remunerative 
industries.  It  enjoys  also  the  advantage  of  a  well-established  and  excellently- 
edited  newspaper.  In  the  vicinity  is  a  quarry  of  excellent  brownstone,  already 
successfully  worked. 

THE    EGYPT    COAL    MINES. 

The  Egypt  Coal  Company,  which  purchased  the  Egypt  mine  estate — com- 
prising twelve  hundred  acres  of  coal  land,  twelve  hundred  acres  of  timber  land, 
and  three  hundred  acres  in  a  high  state  of  cultivation — have,  at  the  date  of  this 
publication,  very  nearh-  restored  the  machine  plant  and  accomplished  the  un- 
watering  of  the  mine,  the  shaft  of  which  is  four  hundred  and  sixty-three  feet  in 
depth,  with  twelve  hundred  feet  of  gangway,  numerous  slopes,  chambers,  &c. 
The  machinery  has  been  put  in  excellent  repair,  pit-head  erected  and  all  the 
timbering  restored;  the  steam  used  in  the  operation  of  the  machinery  has  been 
produced  from  refuse  coal  l>'ing  upon  the  dump  for  over  twenty  years — a 
remarkably  strong  proof  of  its  excellent  quality — and,  to  guard  against  every 
possible  contingency,  the  company  have  laid  a  pipe  line  one-fourth  of  a  mile  in 
length  from  a  spring  which  will  furnish  an  ample  supply  of  water. 

The  present  machine  plant  and  the  openings  in  the  mine  have  a  capacity  of 
about  three  hundred  tons  per  da\-,  and  the  company  anticipate  no  difficulty  in 


JO  CAPE  FEAR  AND   YADKIN  lALLEY  RAILWAY. 

mining  and  marketing  an  output  of  that  amount  within  the  State.  The 
property,  prior  to  its  coming  into  the  hands  of  the  present  management,  repre- 
sented a  cash  capital  of  S-50,ooo  for  machiner\-,  developments  and  improve- 
ments, and  the  additional  outla_\'  with  the  present  company  has  already  reached 
into  the  thousands.  Hitherto,  operations  have  been  conducted  under  great  dis- 
advantage, and  at  expense  for  labor  and  material  far  in  excess  of  what  the  same  ♦ 
now  costs — changed  conditions  b\'  which  the  present  company  will  undoubtedly 
profit.  A  branch  line  of  railway  a  mile  long,  extending  from  Egypt  Depot  to 
the  shaft  of  the  mine,  has  been  graded  and  cross-ties  delivered,  so  that  the  work 
will  be  completed  by  the  time  the  mining  company  is  ready  to  ship  coal. 

A  brownstone  quarry  of  approved  quality  has  also  been  opened,  and  when 
fully  uncovered  the  shipments  of  its  excellent  building  material  will  doubtless 
be  much  increased. 

An  extensive  saw-mill  has  been  erected  on  the  company's  property,  and  a 
brick-yard  will  soon  be  in  operation. 

A  town  site — Egypt  Depot — has  been  laid  off,  and  an  architect  has  drawn 
plans  for  several  buildings  which  will  be  erected  forthwith. 

Gulf-,  Goldston,  Richmond  and  Ore  Hill  are  the  next  four  stations  west 
from  Egypt,  all  showing  a  steady  and  gratifying  increase  in  business  and  popu- 
lation each  )-ear. 

Near  Ore  Hill  are  the 

MOUNT    VERNON    SPRINGS, 
whose  waters  have  been  carefully  anah'zed,  and  undoubtedly  possess  unusual 
medicinal  efficacy.     The_\'  have  become  a  popular  sinnmer  resort,  and,  with  con- 
templated enlarged  and  improved  hotel  accommodations,  \\\\\  continue  to  at- 
tract numbers  of  visitors. 

SILER    CITY. 

Siler  City,  having  tributary  to  it  an  excellent  agricultural  section,  has  grown 
rapidly,  and  has  been  quick  to  seize  upon  the  opportunities  presented  by  rail- 
way communication  with  the  outside  world,  in  bending  every  effort  to  build  up 
its  business  in  merchandise,  and  enhance  the  \-alue  of  its  industrial  pursuits. 
Here  is  located  a  good  boarding  and  day  school,  under  the  management  and 
supervision  of  careful  and  efficient  instructors,  and  offering  the  advantages 
of  excellent  ph)-sical,  mental  and  moral  training. 

Siler  City  has  a  large  tobacco  warehouse,  several  lumber  and  planing  mills, 
together  with  a  number  of  prosperous  and  energetic  business  houses  and  men. 
A  gratifying  evidence  of  the  growth  and  thrift  of  the  surrounding  country  is 
found  in  the  success  attending  the  exhibitions  of  the  annual  agricultural  fair 
held  at  Siler  Cit\\ 


WATER    TOWER,  GREENSBORO,  N.  C. 


CAPE  FEAR  AND  YADKIN  VALLEY  RAILWAY. 


STALEY. 

This  busy  place  has  literally  sprung  into  existence  with  the  westward  exten- 
sion of  the  road.  Emerging  from  the  woods  with  the  advent  of  steam  and  the 
flying  train,  its  growth  has  been  lusty  and  its  prosperity  remarkable.  Its  popu- 
lation is  about  two  hundred,  with  nine  stores,  shuttle  factory,  chair  factory,  saw 
mills  and  planing  mills  within  its  limits  and  in  the  immediate  vicinity.  It  never 
fails  to  make  an  excellent  exhibit  on  the  freight-books  of  the  company,  as  it  is 
one  of  the  shipping  points  of  the  Deep  River  Cotton  Mills,  and  its  merchants 
carry  on  a  brisk  trade  in  the  shipment  of  poultry  and  other  farm  products,  while 
they  deal  largely  in  furs  and  dried  fruits. 

The  lands  of  this  section  and  on  to  Liberty  produce  a  very  fine  grade  of 
bright  yellow  leaf  tobacco,  growing  also  some  of  the  finest  fruits  of  different 
varieties  raised  throughout  the  extent  of  the  line. 

LIBERTY. 

Liberty  is  beautifully  situated,  and  presents  a  very  pleasing  appearance  to 
the  incoming  railway  passenger.  The  extension  of  its  limits  and  the  growth  of 
its  population  have  been  very  marked  within  the  past  two  or  three  years,  and 
the  citizens  now  claim  a  total  of  between  five  hundred  and  six  hundred  inhab- 
itants. An  act  of  incorporation  has  been  recently  granted  by  the  legislature, 
and  many  contemplated  and  actual  improvements  evince  the  spirit  of  progress 
and  enterprise.  A  fine  school  is  established  here,  which,  for  discipline,  efficiency 
and  curriculum  of  stud}',  has  already  taken  high  rank  among  the  educational 
institutions  of  that  section.  A  large  area  of  country  surrounding  Libert}-  is 
admirably  adapted  to  sheep  husbandr}'.  The  land  is  well  drained,  high  and  dr}', 
offering  fine  ranges  for  flocks.  The  mutton  raised  is  not  very  large  but  of  excel- 
lent quality,  and  the  wool  clip  is  good. 

Julian,  Factor}'  Junction  (from  which  extends  the  Millboro  Branch,  con- 
necting with  the  factories  at  Deep  River)  and  Pleasant  Garden  are  the  last 
three  stations  on  the  road  leading  into  Greensboro. 

GREENSBORO. 

Greensboro,  the  beautiful  gateway  into  the  fair  Piedmont  region,  merits 
with  emphasis  the  importance  given  it  as  a  great  "railroad  centre:" — the 
point  of  junction  of  the  Cape  Fear  and  Yadkin  Valley  and  Richmond  and 
Danville  Railroads,  with  the  various  extensive  connections  of  both  s}-stems, 
which  embrace  the  main  and  branch  lines  leading  south  and  southeast  to 
Wilmington,    Bennettsville    and    Fayetteville;  north    to    Danville,   Richmond, 


74  CAPE  FEAR  AND  YADKIN  VALLEY  RAIUVAY. 

Washington  and  beyond ;  east  to  Raleigh,  Goldsboro  and  New  Berne ; 
soutliwest  to  Salisbury,  Asheville  and  Charlotte ;  west  to  Madison,  Winston, 
Salem  and  Alt.  Airy.  Twenty-two  passenger  trains  arrive  at  and  depart 
from  the  depots  of  the  city  during  the  twenty-four  hours ;  and,  as  the  time- 
tables of  a  large  part  of  these  include  only  the  hours  of  morning  from 
8  to  lo  A.  M.,  and  evening  from  8  to  ii  p.  M.,  the  stir  and  bustle  of  moving 
baggage-trucks,  hurrying  passengers,  crowded  waiting-rooms,  rattling  omni- 
buses, hacks,  &c.,  give  the  traveler  a  pleasing  impression  of  the  progressive 
life  of  the  city,  which  a  walk  through  its  crowded  thoroughfares  and  along 
its  blocks  of  handsome  business  houses  will  confirm  and  strengthen. 

Not  through  accident  has  Greensboro  attained  its  present  prominence  on 
the  highway  of  railway  travel.  For  more  than  half  a  century  its  leading 
citizens — among  whom  were  men  entrusted,  by  virtue  of  their  commanding 
abilities  and  high  character,  with  the  most  weighty  public  responsibilities,  the 
helm  of  State  government  and  high  place  in  its  councils — have  been  ever 
keenly  alive  to  the  material  advancement  of  the  people  through  great  meas- 
ures of  internal  improvement,  devoting  their  energies,  time  and  money  not 
only  to  the  development  of  the  Cape  Fear  and  Yadkin  Valley.  Railway 
system,  but  to  the  promotion  and  completion  of  other  important  roads  in 
North  Carolina.  Those  who  have  come  after  them  have  not  been  careless 
of  the  example  or  unworthy  of  the  trust  committed  to  their  hands,  and 
active  in  the  business  circles  of  the  town  to-day  are  men  who  have  done  a 
giant's  work  in  weaving  about  it  the  network  of  steel  rails  which  gives  it 
profitable  traffic  and  smiling  prosperity. 

The  City's  Growth. 

The  fine  surrounding  farming  country  and  its  many  other  natural  advan- 
tages would  never  permit  Greensboro  to  stagnate  or  languish ;  consequently 
its  whole  history  is  that  of  one  of  the  thrifty,  flourishing  places  of  the  State. 
But  its  growth  within  a  decade  has  been  very  marked;  its  progress  during 
the  past  five  years  has  been  especially  gratifying,  since  the  completion  of  the 
Cape  Fear  and  Yadkin  Valley  Railway  in  1884.  The  compact  area  enclos- 
ing the  city  proper,  and  finding  its  centre  in  the  public  square  containing 
the  court-house  and  United  States  Government  building,  has  proven  inade- 
quate to  the  needs  both  of  business  men  and  householders ;  and  the  exten- 
sion of  the  suburbs — beautified  by  tasteful  residences  and  neat  cottages,  and 
enlivened  by  machine-shops  and  other  industrial  establishments — has  been 
constant  and  rapid.  It  is  not  extravagant  to  say  that  the  growth  of  the 
suburb  of   South  Greensboro  has  been  phenomenal.      Five  years  have  trans- 


CAPE  FEAR  AXD  YADk-fX  lALLEV  RAILIVAY.  J-J 

formed  it  from  a  straggling  settlement  into  a  town  of  itself,  with  comfort- 
able and  elegant  abodes,  artistic  flower  yards  and  grounds,  and  beautiful 
streets. 

An  estimate  of  population  must  of  course  be  approximate,  but  that  the 
increase  has  been  great  is  beyond  question.  Including  extensive  environs 
south,  southwest,  west,  and  east,  a  careful  computation,  based  on  the  number 
of  new  buildings  erected,  the  increased  volume  of  business,  and  the  largely- 
augmented  vote  at  the  last  election  of  the  two  townships  in  which  the  town 
is  comprised,  would  give  Greensboro  a  place  in  the  next  census  of  not  far 
from  seven  thousand  inhabitants.  This  includes  all  the  suburbs  which  ha\'e 
hitherto  had  no  place  in  the  count  of  the  population. 

Public  Works  and  Improvements. 

Nature's  generosity  and  man's  energy  having  made  Greensboro  a  city,  its 
people  have  resolved  that  it  should  have  the  garniture,  furnishing  and  conven- 
iences of  a  cit)-,  and  for  the  past  few  j-ears  the  work  of  improvement  has  been 
systematic  and  steady. 

The  fall  of  1888  saw  the  completion  of  an  extensive  system  of  water-works, 
of  the  combined  standpipe  and  direct  pressure  form,  with  about  three  miles  of 
main  pipe,  fifty  public  and  three  private  fire-hydrants,  the  tower  being  located 
in  the  vicinity  of  the  railway  depots — a  prominent  and  imposing  object  which 
catches  the  e\'e  of  the  traveler  miles  away.  An  ample  supply  of  water  is  fur- 
nished for  the  manifold  uses  of  the  communit}-,  and  for  the  most  serious  emer- 
gencies of  fire. 

Sidewalks  have  been  laid  of  Fa\"etteville  brick,  of  veiy  excellent  and  lasting 
material,  the  roadway  paved  with  granite  blocks  quarried  at  Flat  Rock,  near 
Mt.  Ain,';  and  Elm  Street,  the  main  business  thoroughfare,  presents  a  hand- 
some and  attractive  appearance  throughout. 

The  fire  department  is  excellent,  the  citizens  universally  giving  it  their 
cordial  co-operation  and  support,  with  a  full  realization  of  its  importance.  A 
commodious  and  well-arranged  building  accommodates  the  steam  fire-engine 
and  hook  and  ladder  truck,  with  the  horses  in  training,  and  the  quarters  of  the 
superv'ising  night  watchman.  The  department  includes  hose-reel  teams,  con- 
veniently located  in  different  quarters  of  the  city,  and  other  improvements  are 
in  contemplation — the  putting  in  of  an  electric  fire-alarm,  &c. 

The  city  is  lighted  by  both  gas  and  electricity,  and  few  places  in  the  South 
can  claim  a  better  or  more  effective  system,  taking  in  not  only  the  business 
streets  but  those  ramif}'ing  out  into  the  remote  suburbs. 


CAPE  FEAR  AND  YADKIN  VALLEY  RAILWAY. 


Manufactures. 

There  are  now,  within  the  cit}'  proper,  or  comprised  in  the  hmits  of  its  dif- 
ferent suburbs  : — 

3     iron    foundries,    makintj    plows,    turbine    and    other    wheels,    ironware, 
castings,  &c.,  &:c. 

2  sash,    blind    and    door    factories — one    very  extensive    in    its    operations, 

just  fitted  out  with  new  machinery,  demanding  immense  supplies  of 
raw  material,  and  turning  out  a  large  amount  of  first-class  work,  which 
is  shipped  b)'  all  the  railroad  lines  to  different  points. 

3  manufactories  of  plug  tobacco. 

1  cigar  factory. 

2  wagon  factories. 

1  carriage  and  buggy  factory. 

2  shoe  factories. 

I    large  merchant  flour   and    grain    mill   (with    another    in    course   of   com- 
pletion). 
I    ice  factory. 

I    spoke  and  handle  factor)-. 
I    steam  beer-bottling  establishment. 
Electric-light  plant. 
Gas-works. 
I    mattress  factory. 

1  terra  cotta  factor}'. 

4  brick  yards. 

2  manufactories  of  tinware. 

I    manufactory  of  Tar  Heel  Liniment. 

Throughout  the  countrv  adjacent  the  fruit  and  vegetable  canning  industry 
has  assumed  important  proportions,  with  every  indication  of  future  remunera- 
tive returns. 

It  will  be  seen  that,  in  comparison  with  its  wealth,  influence  and  importance, 
Greensboro's  manufacturing  interests  are  in  their  infancy.  This  condition  of 
things  will  not  endure  long.  Outside  capital  will  be  attracted  hither  by  the 
unparalleled  advantages  offered  ;  enterprise  and  public  spirit  at  home  will 
speedily  utilize  all  the  means  available;  cotton  and  woolen  mills  will  follow 
the  wood-works,  these  to  be  supplemented  by  the  furnace  and  the  foundry. 

Mekcaxtile  Business,  &<;. 

The  rapid  building  up  of  South  Elm  Street,  as  the  demands  of  trade 
passed  the  bounds  of  East  and  West  Market,  as  well  as  the  lively  traffic  now 
daily  seen  on  South  Davie  Street,  are  gratifying  evidences  of  the  annually 
increasing  business  in  all  the  branches  of  merchandise.  Besides  the  local 
trade  which  a  tributary  productive  territory  must  throw  into  the  hands  of  its 
merchants,  Greensboro's  unrivaled  facilities  cannot  fail  to  make  it  the  entrepot 


CAPE  FEAR  AND  YADKIN  VALLEY  RAILWAY. 


for  a  large  surrounding  area  of  country  accessible  b)'  rail,  and  the  future  will 
continue  to  swell  the  volume  of  its  wholesale  and  retail  business  in  dry  goods, 
groceries,  hardware,  ironware,  agricultural  implements,  sash,  doors,  blinds  and 
other  building  material,  &c.,  &c.  Facts  are  more  satisfactory  than  generalities, 
and  statistical  information,  carefully  gathered  from  time  to  time,  shows  that  the 
aggregate  of  merchandise  purchases  of  the  city  has  increased  nearly  fifty  per 
cent,  in  the  past  three  years. 

The  trade  in  dried  fruits  of  this  market  is  enormous,  and  includes  apples, 
peaches,  pears,  cherries  and  the  different  berries.  Great  improvement  has  been 
made  by  the  growers  in  the  drying  and  treatment  of  fruits,  and  the  goods 
shipped  from  this  point  obtain  a  high  rating  in  the  Northern  markets.  The 
fruit  is  reckoned,  not  by  bushels,  one  may  sa}',  but  by  immense  bins  and  great 
car-loads,  forty  of  the  latter  in  dried  apples  alone  being  shipped  by  one  firm 
last  season.  This  business  is  of  some  months'  duration — from  late  spring  until 
autumn — and  gives  employment  to  hundreds  in  picking,  drying  and  marketing. 
.  Such  a  business  community  demands  proporcional  monetary  and  financial 
facilities,  and  these  are^unished  by  three  banks,  exclusive  of  the  savings  and 
deposit  institution,  one  of  which  (the  National  Bank  of  Greensboro)  showed, 
during  the  twelve  months  of  1888,  average  daily  deposits  of  $15,221.64,  and 
average  daily  checks  paid  §15,302.55,  making  it  safe  to  place  the  total  volume 
of  the  bank's  transactions  at  §40,000  per  day. 

Business  Organizatiox. 

The  mercantile  circles  of  the  city  are  unified  and  incited  to  concert  of 
action  by  the  Chamber  of  Commerce,  which  embraces  in  its  membership  the 
leading  and  influential  citizens  of  the  place,  whose  efforts  as  an  organized  body 
have  already  been  potent  in  advancing  the  general  welfare,  and  the  Chamber 
will  not  fail  of  the  accomplishment  of  much  good  with  the  city's  future 
growth. 

The  Land  and  Improvement  Company  has  been  recently  established,  with 
the  object,  primarily,  of  pushing  the  trade  in  leaf  tobacco  by  the  erection  of 
suitable  buildings ;  it  will  also  prove  useful  in  systematizing  the  sales  of  real 
estate,  placing  investments,  &c. 

Tobacco  Interests. 

The  tobacco  business  is  in  the  hands  of  pushing,  aggressive  men,  who  do 
not  suffer  it  to  flag,  and  finds  its  facilities  for  marketing,  sales,  handling  of 
the  leaf  and  manufacture  in  three  large  sales  warehouses,  nine  prize  factories, 
three    plug   and    twist    manufactories,  and    one    cigar    factory  (the    latter  four 


CAPE  FEAR  AND  YADKIN  VALLEY  RAILWAY. 


already  mentioned  under  the  heading  of  "manufactures").  The  city's  rightful 
place  as  an  important  tobacco  market  has  not  hitherto  been  fully  appreciated, 
or,  rather,  fully  utilized ;  but  strenuous  efforts  have  of  late  been  made  to 
accomplish  this,  with  substantial  results.  The  compiler  is  permitted  to  take 
from  the  last  annual  report  of  Julius  A.  Gray,  president  of  the  Chamber  of 
Commerce,  the  following  figures  : — 

"The  leaf  tobacco  sold  on  this  market  from  October,  1887,  to 

October,    1888,  aggregates 2,276,173  lbs. 

That  purchased    by  our   dealers    on  other  markets  during  the 

same  period 792,3 1 1  lbs. 

Making  the  total  handled  bv  Greensboro  tobacconists 3,068,484  lbs." 


The  above  creditable  exhibit  is  dwarfed  by  the  developments  of  the 
present  season.  Such  has  been  the  impetus  given  to  the  Greensboro  tobacco 
business  that  a  good  crop  year  would  have  increased  these  figures  by  at  least 
one-half.  Within  the  past  three  years  the  number  of  prize-houses  has  risen 
from  three  to  nine,  with  a  corresponding  forward  movement  in  the  manufac- 
ture of  the  leaf.  The  warehouses  are  selling  tobacco  from  the  twelve  coun- 
ties of  Guilford,  Surry,  Stokes,  Forsyth,  Davie,  Davidson,  Randolph,  Chatham, 
Orange,  Alamance,  Caswell  and  Rockingham,  besides  large  and  frequent  ship- 
ments to  them  from  Tennessee,  Virginia  and  South  Carolina.  No  market  in 
the  State  has  access  by  rail  and  \\agon  to  a  larger  and  more  productive 
area  of  the  "  Bright  Tobacco  Belt,"  and  this,  ^\  ith  its  unexcelled  shipping 
facilities  and  advantages  of  transportation  to  all  outside  markets,  must  event- 
ually place  Greensboro  abreast  of  the  foremost  tobacco  towns  of   the  South. 

School  Advantages. 

These  are  exceptionally  fine,  and  will  be  examined  with  satisfaction  by 
all  contemplating  investment  in  propert}'  and  a  permanent  residence  among 
the  people  of  this  favored  community.  The  Txhite  graded  school  of  the  city 
proper  has  an  enrollment  of  about  four  hundred  and  thirt}',  with  an  average 
daily  attendance  of  three  hundred  and  thirty-five  pupils,  with  efficient  super- 
intendence, complete  departments  in  the  different  educational  branches,  and 
a  full  corps  of  teachers.  Bellevue  Academy,  in  South  Greensboro,  offers  the 
same  facilities  to  the  children  of  that  part  of  the  city. 

Greensboro  Female  College,  occupying  an  imposing  structure  in  the  centre 
of  beautiful  and  spacious  grounds  at  the  head  of  West  Market   Street,  is  the 


CAPE  FEAR  AXD  YADKIN  ]\-iLLEY  RAILWAY.  85 

denominational  high  school  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  South  in 
North  Carolina,  and  enjoj-s  a  wide  area  of  patronage  throughout  the  South. 
The  course  of  study  is  thorough,  with  painstaking  preparations  in  fitting 
feminine  accomplishments,  and  the  discipline  wise  and  effective,  making  the 
institution  well  deserve  its  high  character  and  enviable  popularity.  There 
are,  besides,  several  good  private  schools;  and  it  will  not  be  amiss  to  note 
here  that  county  and  town  are  worth}'  of  each  other,  for  Guilford  probably 
contains  more  long-established,  well-sustained  schools  within  its  borders  than 
any  other  county  in  the  State. 

Public    Buildings. 

If  not  in  the  number,  certainly  in  the  attractive  architecture  and  artistic 
finish,  of  its  public  buildings,  Greensboro  may  invite  comparison  with  other 
towns  of  its  wealth,  size  and  population.  The  graded  school  building,  in 
North  Greensboro,  is  graceful  and  elegant  in  style,  with  an  interior  admirably 
fitted  and  arranged  for  its  purposes,  and  an  oratorium  for  musical,  dramatic 
or  literary  entertainments. 

The  county  court-house  is  a  model  for  buildings  of  the  kind.  The 
architect  succeeded  in  blending  the  durable  and  ornamental  with  unusual 
taste  and  skill,  and  presented  to  the  people  of  the  county  a  piece  of  work 
well  worthy  the  expenditure  of   money  required. 

The  Government  building  occupies  a  very  eligible  location  on  South  Elm 
Street — a  massive  and  ornate  piece  of  architecture.  It  contains  the  post- 
office  and  the  offices  of  the  Federal  Go\-ernment. 

The  National  Bank  of  Greensboro  has  just  completed  a  new  building  at 
the  corner  of  South  Elm  and  East  Washington  Streets.  It  is  of  brick,  with 
granite  facings,  cornice  and  other  exterior  work,  while  the  interior  is  finished 
in  beautiful  native  dressed  pine,  with  an  unusual  completeness  of  arrange- 
ment in  vault,  banking-room,  i)resident's  and  directors'  rooms,  &c.  Two 
handsome  stores  also  form  parts  of  this  commodious  structure.  The  second 
story  has  been  specially  arranged  for  and  is  rented  for  a  term  of  years  to  the 
Young  Men's  Club  of  Greensboro  and  the  Chamber  of  Commerce,  artd  the 
third  story  has  been  arranged  for  and  rented  for  a  term  of  years  to  the 
Masonic  Lodge  of    Greensboro. 

A   Pleasant    Place  of  Sojourn. 

A  climate  never  approaching  the  severity  of  the  North  in  winter  and 
particularly  delightful  in  summer,  a  healthfulness  unquestioned,  and  freedom 
from  the  virulence  of  malarial  diseases,  enable  Greensboro  to  offer  no  mean 
attractions  to  the  delicate    invalid  or  the  pleasure-seeking  tourist.     Especially 


86  CAPE  FEAR  AND  YADKIN  VALLEY  RAILWAY. 

during  the  months  of  May,  June,  July  and  August  is  it  a  charming  abiding- 
place.  Within  two  or  three  hours'  ride  of  the  matchless  sceneiy  of  the 
Piedmont  and  Blue  Ridge  country,  and  the  chalybeate,  sulphur  and  alum 
springs  which  make  that  section  celebrated,  while  but  little  farther  in  point 
of  time  and  distance  from  the  pleasures  of  Carolina  Beach  and  Wrightsville 
Sound,  the  Northern  traveler  may  rest  here  as  his  "  point  of  vantage,"  to 
seek  "green  fields  and  pastures  new"  in  a  day's  jaunt  or  a  week's  journeying 
in  any  direction. 

The  Benbow  and  McAdoo  Houses  furnish  first-rate  hotel  accommoda- 
tions, combining  all  the  conveniences,  comforts  and  luxuries  of  table,  room  and 
attendance  which  the  experienced  voyager  demands  and  expects  in  these 
enlightened  days.  So  well  known  is  the  excellent  character  of  the  enter- 
tainment afforded  by  them  that  the  city  has  long  been  the  Sunday  stopping- 
place  of  the  traveling  salesman,  who  puts  no  more  important  question  to 
himself  on  the  eve  of  one  of  his  rare  periods  of  rest  than  Falstaff's  query: 
"Shall  I  not  take  mine  ease  in  mine  inn?" 

The  City  of  Flowers — Characteristics  ok  the  People. 

The  captivated  fancy  of  the  visiting  stranger  has  given  to  Greensboro  the 
name  of  "  City  of  Flowers,"  and  the  welcoming  host  who  leads  him,  through 
trim  parterres,  a  wealth  of  foliage  and  a  profusion  of  flowers,  across  the 
hospitable  threshold,  fixes  the  colors  of  the  charming  picture  with  all  the 
refinements  of  cultured  home-life.  If  the  love  of  flowers  be  the  indication  of 
not  only  an  aesthetic  taste  but  of  a  high  moral  nature,  these  are  surely  good 
people,  for  their  greenhouses  seem  as  dear  to  them  as  their  dwellings,  and  their 
gardens  are  tended  with  more  than  the  zealous  care  that  watches  over  the 
golden  harvest  of  the  husbandman. 

Many  elegant  residences  adorn  the  principal  streets,  and  if  the  architecture 
is  not  alwaj's  fashioned  strictly  after  approved  and  classic  models,  it  is  ever 
beautiful  and  attractive,  with  the  additional  merits  of  comfort  and  convenience. 

Greensboro  is  an  eminently  conservative  community — nor  could  its  citizens 
well  be  otherwise,  for  their  fathers  were  a  homogeneous  people,  fostering  the 
same  traditions  and  cherishing  the  same  modest  aims  and  aspirations ;  here 
lived,  and  still  live,  the  Quakers  and  the  Nicolites,  whose  impress  is  ever  strong 
where  they  move  and  have  their  being.  This  generation  deems  it  best,  even  for 
a  new  South,  to  "prove  all  things  :  hold  fast  that  which  is  good;"  and  while  it 
would  be  difificult  to  imagine  them  in  the  vortex  of  a  feverish  "  boom,"  losing 
their  heads  over  new  methods  and  new  ideas,  it  would  be  still  more  difficult  to 
imagine  them  given  over  to  indifference  and  apathy  in  the  face  of  progress  and 
substantial  improvement. 


CAPE  FEAR  AND  YADKIN  VALLEY  RAILWAY. 


89 


Miscellaneous. 


Just  beyond  the  northwestern  Hmits  of  the  town  is  Green  Hill  Cemetery, 
occupying  a  commanding  position  which  overlooks  the  city,  and  here  has  re- 
cently been  placed,  with  fitting  ceremonies,  a  bronze  statue  of  the  Confederate 
Soldier — an  admirable  work  of  art,  where,  on  each  lineament  of  the  strife-worn 
veteran,  war's  grim  tragedy  is  traced. 

There  are  published  in  Greensboro  one  daily  and  three  weekly  newspapers, 
and  one  monthh*  (college)  magazine. 

In  close  proximit}'  to  the  depot  of  the  road  are  the  offices  of  the  president 
of  the  Cape  Fear  and  Yadkin  Valley  Railway,  general  superintendent,  chief 
ei^gineer,  and  their  assistants.  These  occupy  a  commodious  and  handsome 
building,  with  adjoining  valuable  property. 

The  countr}'  immediately  surrounding  Greensboro  is  not  only  very  pro- 
ducti\'e  of  fine  fruits  for  shipment  abroad  and  home  consumption,  but  is  largely 
devoted  to  the  growth  of  all  kinds  of  fruit  trees  adapted  to  climate  and  soil, 
and  there  are  numerous  large  nurseries  within  a  radius  of  eight  miles — in  fact, 
this  whole  section  is  one  of  the  great  fruit  nurseries  of  the  South.  Some  idea 
of  the  extent  of  this  business  ma}-  be  gained  from  the  statement  of  the  fact 
that  the  freight  charges  on  fruit-tree  shipments  from  this  point  annually  aggre- 
gate from  §7,000  to  §8,000. 

A  great  increase  has  also  been  recently  made  in  the  growth  of  green- 
house and  exotic  flowers,  the  large  Pomona  Nurseries  in  the  vicinity  of  the 
city  having  constructed  extensive  greenhouses  and  made  varied  plantings  of 
trees  and  slirubs  for  the  trade  in  floriculture.  Not  onl_\-  this,  but  the  great 
advantages  offered  for  grazing  b}-  the  lowlands  and  the  territory  bordering 
the  streams  have  given  an  impetus  to  grazing  and  stock-raising,  and  there 
is  every  probability  that  Guilford  will  soon  be  ranked  as  one  of  the  "dairy" 
counties  of  the   State. 


"Piedmont  and  IVjoUntain  "©iVi^ion. 


From  Greensboro  to  Mt.  airy-seventy  miles. 


RAVERSED  by  this  division  are  a  portion  of  Guilford  and  the 
counties  of  Rockingham  (tributary),  Forsyth,  Stokes  and  Surry. 
Here,  indeed,  is  a  goodly  heritage  of  the  treasures  of  earth  and  the 
bounties  of  nature  waiting  through  the  silence  of  centuries  for 
dc\'elopment  at  the  hands  of  man.  All  through  the  western  and  northern 
portions  of  Guilford  county,  fringing  the  sinuous  banks  of  Haw  River,  stretch 
majestic  forests,  never  yet  profaned  by  the  touch  of  the  woodman's  ax  ;  clirtging 
to  the  spurs  and  reaching  up  from  the  defiles  of  the  Suaratown  Mountains, 
and  overshadowing  with  their  boundless  canopy  the  valleys  of  the  Yadkin  and 
Ararat  Rivers,  are  immense  quantities  of  the  different  oaks,  poplar,  walnut, 
hickory,  wild  cherrj',  ash,  dogwood  and  locust. 

The  soil  is  the  red  and  yellow  of  the  gneiss  and  granite  geological  formation, 
and  is  susceptible  of  enormous  yields  of  the  cereals,  tobacco,  fruits  and  vegeta- 
bles. In  the  mountain  section  proper  of  this  favored  division  are  grown 
apples  pronounced  among  the  finest  in  the  world,  cabbage  of  enormous  size  and 
remarkably  fine  quality,  while  the  crops  of  potatoes,  hay,  oats,  rye  and  buck- 
wheat are  wonderful.  In  a  country  so  exuberant  and  prolific  it  is  not  surprising 
that  we  find  fine  horses,  cattle,  and  sheep  ;  it  is  the  natural  home  of  the 
grasses — the  land  of  the  dairy  and  its  rich  products.  The  greater  portion  of 
this  division  is  also  part  of  the  "Bright  Tobacco  Belt  ;"  and,  although  its  cul- 
ture has  increased  very  rapidly  within  the  past  few  years,  the  development  of 
the  tobacco  resources  of  this  fertile  region  has  hardly  begun. 

Minerals. 

No  part  of  North  Carolina  excels  this  section  in  the  extent  and  value  of  its 
iron  deposits.  Through  the  centre  of  the  first  county  in  the  division — 
Guilford — stretches  a  range  of  magnetic  ore  for  more  than  twenty-five  miles, 
than  which  no  higher  grade  can  be  found  anywhere  in  the  world,  and  which  is 
now  constantly  shipped  to  the  furnaces  of  the  North  by  rail.  The  same  high 
grade   magnetic  ore   is   found    near   Danbury,  in  Stokes  county,  and    immense 

(93) 


94  CAPE  FEAR  AND  YADKIN  VALLEY  RAILWAY. 

quantities  lie  along  the  Yadkin  River.  Dr.  Lesley,  State  Geologist  of  Penn- 
sylvania, is  high  authority  for  the  statement  that  "  the  purity  of  the  Guilford 
county  ore  is  absolute,  none  of  it  containing  either  sulphur  or  phosphorus.  As 
to  the  titanium,  its  presence  makes  no  difficulty  under  judicious  furnace  manage- 
ment.    As  to  its  quantity,  centuries  of  heavy  mining  could  not  exhaust  it." 

In  three  analyses  of  the  ore  of  Great  Bend  and  in  the  vicinity  of  tlie  Pilot 
Mountain,  there  was  of  sulphur,  none;  of  phosphorus,  0.04,  0.05,  0.04. 

Manufacturing. 

We  are  treating  now  of  a  new  country,  awakened  to  a  progressive  life  less 
than  a  year  ago,  and  its  advancement  in  milling,  manufacturing  and  other 
pursuits  is  yet  to  come.  Though  inferior  to  that  of  the  Cape  Fear  and  Deep 
River  sections,  the  water-power  of  this  division  is  extensive  and  unfailing. 
The  Ararat  and  its  tributary  creeks  would  more  than  supply  the  motive  power 
for  dozens  of  mills  supporting  a  population  of  thousands. 

THE    MADISON    BRANCH. 

From  Stokesdale  a  branch  of  the  Cape  Fear  and  Yadkin  Valley  Railway 
has  been  nearly  completed  to  Madison,  in  Rockingham  county,  giving  facilities 
of  freight  and  travel  to  that  flourishing  town  and  to  a  country  rich  in  grain 
resources  and  tobacco.  The  bridge  across  the  river  is  rapidly  constructing,  and 
trains  will  be  running  into  Madison  by  the  1st  of  June,  1889,  although  there 
has  been  for  four  months  a  regular  schedule  taking  freight  and  passengers 
up  to  the  banks  of  the  river. 

WALNUT   COVE. 

No  place  on  the  line  has  evinced  a  more  gratifying  spirit  of  progress  than 
Walnut  Cove,  and  its  improvement  in  every  branch  of  business  and  industry 
is  very  noticeable.  It  has  the  good  fortune  to  possess  citizens  of  energy,  who 
know  the  advantages  vouchsafed  to  them  and  are  prompt  to  utilize  them. 
Besides  a  considerable  mercantile  trade,  the  tobacco  business  employs  many 
operatives,  and  puts  in  circulation  a  large  amount  of  ready  money  in  the 
payment  of  wages.  Tanneries,  flour  and  grist  mills,  &c.,  are  also  thriving 
industries  at  this  point.  Walnut  Cove  offers  the  right  sort  of  welcome  to 
the  stranger  in  an  excellent  hotel,  than  which  no  town  can  have  a  better 
advertisement. 

Connection  between  Winston  and  Walnut  Cove  has  been  recently  made 
by  the  Roanoke  and  Southern  Railroad,  the  contemplated  extension  of  which 
leads  it  via  Martinsville  to  Roanoke,  Va. 


CAPE  FEAR  AND  YADKIN  VALLEY  RAILWAY.  97 


DANBURY. 

Hardly  a  town  in  the  State  can  clierish  more  reasonable  hopes  of  a  bright 
future  than  Danbury,  in  Stokes  county,  distant  eleven  miles  from  the  Cape 
Fear  and  Yadkin  Valley  Railway.  The  energies  of  those  thrifty  people  find 
employment  in  a  good  general  merchandise  business,  besides  that  accruing  from 
the  output  of  numerous  large  tobacco  factories,  tanneries,  flour  and  corn  mills, 
and  the  building  which  the  progress  of  the  town  demands. 

The  tributary'  country  is  productive,  but  wild,  broken  and  precipitous,  and 
one  would  feel  no  surprise  at  the  catastrophe  which  might  happen  to  a  farmer 
of  this  region,  like  that  related  by  jNIark  Twain  of  the  Swiss  agriculturist  on 
the  Alps,  who,  while  hoeing  in  his  field,  fell  ofT  his  farm  and  broke  his  neck. 
But  it  is  a  "diamond  in  the  rough,"  for  the  earths  bosom  heaves  tumultuously 
in  the  plenitude  of  its  hidden  wealth.  Immense  deposits  exist  here  of  iron, 
limestone,  asbestos,  mica,  soapstone,  lead,  potter's  clay,  plumbago,  berj-l,  S:c. 
This  profusion  of  mineral  resources,  as  they  are  fully  developed,  cannot  fail  to 
make  that  region  populous  and  prosperous,  establishing  and  multiplying  all 
kinds  of  manufacturing  industries. 

PIEDMONT    SPRINGS. 

Between  two  and  three  miles  from  Danbury  are  Piedmont  Springs,  with 
chalybeate  waters  of  very  fine  curative  qualities.  This  is  a  delightful  resort, 
attracting  crowds  of  visitors,  both  of  invalids  who  seek  the  restoration  of  health, 
and  of  those  who  desire  to  participate  in  its  many  social  pleasures  and  attrac- 
tions. The  new  Piedmont  Hotel  was  ready  for  the  reception  of  guests  on 
the  15th  of  May,  1889 — an  elegant  structure  of  imposing  exterior,  and  fitted 
up  with  all  the  conveniences  pertaining  to  the  best  modern  hotels. 

Moore's  alum  and  iron  spring  in  the  same  vicinity  has  also  for  years  been 
esteemed  by  hundreds  who  have  tested  the  efficacy  of  its  waters. 

GERMANTON. 

Germanton  is  a  pretty  town,  beautifully  located,  and  affording  ample 
evidences  of  the  thrift}-  and  progressive  spirit  of  its  people.  It  draws  a  lucrative 
trade  from  a  good  farming  section,  and  its  tobacco  business  is  especially  large 
and  daily  increasing.  Saw  and  planing  mills,  flour  and  grist  mills,  and  several 
lime-kilns  are  busy  and  profitable  industries.  The  Germanton  people  take 
pride  in  their  town  and  the  great  advantages  of  their  section ;  the  social 
attractions  and  school  and  church  facilities  of  the  place  are  fine. 

Near  Germanton  are  very  extensive  beds  of  the  best  limestone,  nov/ 
worked  at  an  excellent  profit.     The   following  analysis  was  furnished  in    18S6 


98  CAPE  FEAR  AND  YADKIN  VALLEY  RAILWAY. 

by    Dr.     Charles   W.    Dabney,    director   of    the   North    Carohna    Experiment 
Station  : — 

Carbonate  of  Lime 95-07 

Matter  insoluble  in  acids 4.93 

Summerfield,  Stokesdale,  Belcw's  Creek,  Rural  Hall,  Dalton,  Pinnacle,  Pilot 
Mountain,  Ararat,  are  all  thriving  stations — shipping  points  for  tobacco,  timber, 
mineral  ores  and  country  products.  Rural  Hall  has  recently  been  connected 
with  Winston  by  the  Richmond  and  Danville  Railroad,  which  will  doubtless 
accomplish  much  in  the  development  of  the  surrounding  country. 

MOUNT    AIRY. 

Mount  Airy,  the  present  western  terminus  of  the  Cape  Fear  and  Yadkin 
Valley  Railway,  is  in  Surry  county,  within  five  miles  of  the  nearest  point  on 
the  base  of  the  Blue  Ridge,  with  an  elevation  of  about  eleven  hundred  feet 
above  sea  level.  Long  a  thriving  village  and  the  trade  centre  of  a  large  and 
prosperous  agricultural  community,  its  growth  and  increase  in  business,  indus- 
trial enterprises  and  population  have  been  almost  unprecedented  since  1880, 
the  census  of  which  year  gave  it  a  population  of  five  hundred  and  nineteen, 
increased  during  the  past  eight  years  to  fifteen  hundred. 

This  gratifying  progress  has  been  especially  noticeable  during  the  past  four 
or  five  years,  when  the  completion  of  the  road  to  Greensboro,  and  its  steady 
extension  onward,  gave  the  people  of  this  section  an  undeniable  guarantee  of 
speedy  railway  connection  with  Middle  and  Eastern  North  Carolina  and  the 
great  world  beyond.  They  set  their  house  in  order  for  its  coming,  and  the  old 
political  shibboleth  of  "the  mountains  ablaze"  was  exchanged  for  the  better 
one  of  the  fires  kindled  in  the  factories  and  machine-shops  along  the  mountain- 
sides ;■  the  simplicit}'  of  rural  life  did  not  draw  them  aloof  from  the  oppor- 
tunities of  material  advancement,  and  the  grandeur  of  their  abiding-place  and 
the  copious  gifts  of  nature  enlarged  their  views,  for — 

"Serene,  not  sullen,  even  the  solitudes 
Of  this  unsighing  people  of  the  woods." 

Mercantile  business  straightway  received  a  forward  impetus;  building  lots 
were  in  eager  demand  at  enhanced  prices;  the  tools  of  the  architect  and 
artisan  were  plied  without  ceasing;  hotel  accommodations  were  enlarged  and 
improved ;  the  prospect  of  accessibility  to  the  great  outside  markets  was  a 
stimulus  to  the  agriculture  of  the  tributary  region,  and  the  railway  celebra- 
tion of  June  20th,  1888,  assembled  thousands  of  visitors  to  behold  a  goodly 
flourishing  town,  with  regular  thoroughfares,  handsome  residences  and  blocks 
of  commodious  stores. 


CAPE  FEAR  AXD   YADKJX  VALLEY  RAIUVAY. 


To-day,  the  industries  of  Mt.  Airy  and  the  vicinity  embrace  four  cotton 
factories,  three  woolen  mills,  eleven  tobacco  factories  (including  cigars),  four 
tobacco  sales-warehouses,  three  wagon  factories,  four  grist  and  four  saw  mills, 
machine  and  blacksmith  shops,   &c. 

The  future  prosperity  of  Mt.  Airy  is  to  be  commensurate  with  the 
extent  to  which  its  people  utilize  the  facilities  for  manufacturing  within 
their  reach.  Almost  within  the  corporate  limits  of  the  town,  on  Ararat 
River  and  Stewart's  and  LovelTs  Creeks,  are  eight  water-powers  of  from 
fourteen  to  eighteen  feet  head,  and  ample  volume  of  water,  furnishing  in 
the  aggregate  from  ten  hundred  to  twelve  hundred  horse-power.  Laurel 
Bluff  Cotton  Mills,  situated  a  little  more  than  a  mile  from  town,  runs  two 
thousand  spindles  and  forty-five  looms,  manufacturing  plaids  and  warp-yarn, 
and  employing  fifty-five  operatives — native  labor.  The  brick  for  the  building 
was  made  on  the  spot  from  the  cla}-  taken  from  the  excavation ;  wood  is 
placed  at  the  door  at  one  dollar  per  cord ;  satisfactory  hands  can  be  ob- 
tained at  fort}-  cents  per  day  ;  and,  although  the  cotton  is  bought  in  Char- 
lotte and  Fayetteville,  this  mill  can  afford  to  make  its  goods  at  prices  that 
would  be  unprofitable  under  less  favorable  conditions. 

As  a  summer  resort  JNIt.  Airy  cannot  fail  to  gain  most  favorable  notice 
and  win  popularity  with  tourists  as  each  year  goes  by.  The  salubrity  of  the 
climate,  whose  breezes,  cooled  on  the  rarefied  heights  of  peak  and  knob  and 
lofty  ridge,  come  laden  with  the  healthful  balsamic  odors  of  the  mountain 
fir  and  pine ;  the  matchless  scenery  of  towering,  blue-curtained  height,  deep 
valley,  rock-girt  ravine  and  embowered  glade ;  the  profusion  of  creature 
comforts — rich  cream  and  butter,  fresh  meats,  poultry,  fruits  and  vegetables — 
all  render  this  an  abode  of  restful  ease  and  enjoyment. 

The  new  Blue  Ridge  Hotel,  with  a  front  of  one  hundred  and  twent)-- 
five  feet,  containing  about  one  hundred  rooms,  embellished  with  even,-  at- 
traction and  furnished  with  every  convenience,  will  be  ready  for  the  reception 
of  health  and  pleasure  seekers  by  the  opening  of  the  summer  season  of   18S9. 

FLAT   ROCK. 

Distant  but  a  short  ride  from  Mt.  Airy  is  "  Flat  Rock,"  a  wonder  of 
nature  in  this  land  teeming  with  objects  of  interest.  A  magnificent  bed  of 
granite  nearly  fort}-  acres  in  extent  lies  above  the  surface  of  the  earth, 
ready  to  the  hand  and  tool  of  the  workman.  The  stone  splits  in  great 
slabs,  and  is  quarried  with  remarkable  ease  and  little  expense,  without  the 
aid  of  blasting  powder.  Immense  quantities  are  daily  transported  over  the 
line  of  railway  to  different  points  for  building,  masonry,  paving,  &c.  A  year 
or  tu-o  ago  a  single  piece  of  this    stone    was    worked    out    from    the    quarry 


CAPE  FEAR  AND  YADKIN  VALLEY  RAILWAY. 


ninety-two  feet  in  length,  but  this  lias  been   recently  excelled  b)'  an   unbroken 
monolith  one  hundred  and  fourteen   feet   long. 

Every  cubic  foot  of  masonry  for  the  magnificent  iron  bridge  o\-er  the 
Cape  Fear  River  at  Faj-etteville,  more  than  one-eighth  of  a  mile  in  length, 
is  transported  the  distance  of  one  hundred  and  sixt}'-seven  miles  from  a 
splendid  quarry  near  Flat   Rock  .iiid   more  convenient   to  the  railroad. 

WHITE   SULPHUR    SPRINGS. 

About  midway  between  ^It.  .\iry  and  the  foot  of  the  Blue  Ridge  are 
the  "^Vhite  Sulphur  Springs,"  offering  comfortable  hotel  buildings,  good 
rooms  and  wholesome  fare,  and  the}'  are  liberally  patronized  by  those  who 
appreciate  the  medicinal  efficac}'  o{  the  water,  an  analj'sis  of  which  is  very 
.similar  to  that  of  the  famous  Greenbrier  White  Sulphur  Springs  of  Virginia. 

The  tobacco  lands  of  this  immediate  section  are  unsurpassed,  the  grasses 
grow  luxuriantly,  fine  crops  of  corn  are  raised  on  the  alluvial  soil  along  the 
streams,  and  the  small  grains  give  excellent  harvests.  No  finer  apple  can  be 
found  in  any  market  than  that  produced  here,  while  the  "  Mt.  Air}' 
cabbage"  (grown  on  the  Blue  Ridge  slopes)  is  already  eagerly  inquired  for 
in  the  Wilmington,   Fa}'etteville  and  Greensboro  markets. 

Wheeler,  in  his  history,  credits  Holman's  Ford,  near  Wilkesboro,  with  the 
honor  of  being  the  home  of  Daniel  Boone,  the  great  Kentucky  pioneer;  but 
the  Surry  people  insist  that  here  at  least  was  his  hunting-ground  and  the 
scene  of  man}'  of  his  exploits.  Certain  it  is  that  the  old  inhabitants  have 
stored  in  memoi-}-,  through  tradition  and  story,  minute  accounts  of  the  prowess 
and  skill  of  Boone,   Findley,   Monay,   Holden  and  their  comrades. 

Within  a  few  miles  of  this  pleasant  town  married,  lived  and  died  the 
Siamese.  T«ins,  leaving  children  \\\\o  are  now  reputable  citizens  of  the 
community,  but  who  exhibit  very  plaiiil}'  the  Mongol  type  in  face,  form  and 
mental  characteristics.  This  will  be  of  interest  to  the  curious  reader,  as 
illustrating  the  strange  vicissitudes  of  fortune  in  this  life :  Taken  from  the 
semi-barbarism  of  the  Southern  Pacific  Ocean,  to  be  the  wonder  of  gaping 
crowds  and  the  stud}-  of  scientific  men,  these  strange  beings  ended  life  in 
right  orthodox  fashion — having  consummated  marriage  under  Christian  ordi- 
nances, and  passed  }'ears  of  prosaic  existence  as  well-to-do  mountain  farmers 
in  one  of  the  commonwealths  of  the  most  enlighteiied  republic  on  earth.      -7 


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AbLh.N  !■    IJI-    I'IN.NACLE   Ol'    I'lLOT   MOVNTAIN. 


Scenery  oj"  tl]e  t^oUte. 


ATURE,  which  has  been  so  lavish  of  her  bounties  through  all  the 
great  area  of  territory  traversed  by  the  Cape  Fear  and  Yadkin 
Valley  Railway — his  own  prolific  "  \'ine  and  fig  tree"  to  the 
patriarch,  bursting  sheaves  of  golden  grain  to  the  sower  and  reaper, 
the  dashing  water-ways  of  a  smiling  land  to  the  spinner  and  weaver,  and  for 
the  miner  the  heaped-up  treasures  of  the  earth's  bosom — has  interwoven  with 
all  charming  pictures  of  mountain,  glade,   forest  and   coast. 

A  ride  of  an  hour  or  two  from  its  eastern  terminus,  b}-  rail,  steamer  or 
carriage,  places  the  tra\-eler  in  the  presence  of  the  ocean's  sublimity  and 
"  boundless  immensity ; "  while,  so  far  away  that  they  seem  as  white-winged, 
fluttering  birds,  spreading  sails  ride  upon  the  billows,  and  steamers  plow 
broad  furrows  through  the  briny  way.  Beyond  the  dazzling  white  sand, 
and  far  away  across  the  outjutting  strips  of  salt  marsh,  lie  the  dismantled 
battlements  and  casemates  of  Forts  Fisher  and  Caswell,  where  the  drows}' 
sentinel  dozed  away  his  watch  in  the  "piping  times  of  peace,"  or  cordons  of 
bombarding  ships,  breached  walls  and  thousands  of  tons  of  hissing,  hurtling 
shells  emphasized   the   terrible  magnificence   of  war. 

For  miles  be\-ond  Wilmington  the  Cape  Fear  and  Yadkin  Valley  Railwaj- 
runs  through  the  "  low  country,"  where  grow  the  water,  live  and  white  oaks, 
of  sturdy  trunk  and  wide-spreading  branches,  draped  in  the  gray  river  moss, 
whose  light,  graceful  festoons  sway  softly  with  ever}-  passing  wind.  Splendid 
groves  of  this  beautiful  tree  are  common  throughout  this  region,  never  without 
these   fleecy  wreaths  of  moss,  and  the  effect  is  indescribably  pleasing. 

The  gloom  of  dense  morass  and  impenetrable  swamp  which  fringe  the  copi- 
ous streams  that  water  this  division  is  relieved  by  the  luxuriant  growth  of  plant 
and  clinging  vine,  which  in  summer  charm  the  eye  with  the  bright  colors  of 
innumerable  wild  flowers  and  fill  the  air  with  fragrance.  The  sweet  bay  and, 
more  rarely,  the  magnolia  are  found  throughout  all  these  lowland  forests. 

MOORE'S    CREEK    BATTLE-GROUND. 

On  the  line  of  the  road,  in  New  Hanover  County,  near  the  mouth  of  Moore's 
Creek,  is  the  battle-ground  of  that  name,  where,  on  the  27th  of  February,  1776, 
the  Royalists  were  so  severely  defeated  by  an  inferior  force  under  Colonels  Cas- 
well and   Lillington.      In  this  engagement  Captain  McDonald,  the  husband  of 

(105) 


I06  CAPE  FEAR  AND  YADKIN  VALLEY  RAILWAY, 

Flora,  was  taken  prisoner — the  first  stroke  of  hapless  fortune  which  followed 
them  to  the  end,  and  prompted  Flora  McDonald  to  exclaim  that  she  "had 
served,  at  the  risk  of  life,  both  the  House  of  Stuart  and  the  House  of  Hanover, 
and  was  not  much'the  gainer  by  either." 

The  country  embraced  in  the  upper  Cape  Fear  and  Deep  River  sections  is 
without  notable  and  striking  beauties  of  scencr}',  beyond  the  great  stretches  of 
noble  forests,  the  winding  streams,  and  the  broad  acres  of  a  thrifty  agricultural 
people.  Utterly  lacking  in  the  picturesque,  the  long-leaf  pine,  to  the  stranger 
beholding  it  for  the  first  time,  is  invested  with  a  peculiar  interest.  A  great 
orchard  or  plantation  (as  it  is  called)  of  pine  worked  for  turpentine  possesses 
singular  features  belonging  to  it  alone.  The  great  height  of  the  trees,  with 
their  resinous  trunks  and  boxes ;  their  remarkable  regularity,  which  permits 
long  vistas  of  perspective  through  the  forest ;  the  strange  bunches  of  needles 
(the  pine's  sole  foliage),  which  repeat  the  "song  of  the  wind"  in  a  soft,  mur- 
muring sough,  have  upon  the  eye  and  the  imagination  a  pleasant  and  soothing 
effect. 

GUILFORD    BATTLE-GROUND. 

Five  miles  west  of  Greensboro  is  the  battle-ground  of  Guilford  Court-house, 
where,  on  the  15th  of  March,  1781,  Gen.  Nathaniel  Greene  and  his  army  met 
the  forces  of  Cornwallis  in  a  hard-fought  engagement,  which  destroyed  the 
foothold  of  British  power  in  this  State,  and  was  the  beginning  of  the  end  of 
the  prestige  and  supremacy  of  British  arms  in  America.  To  a  distinguished 
and  patriotic  citizen  of  the  city  of  Greensboro  the  people  of  North  Carolina  are 
indebted  for  invaluable  service  in  rescuing  the  fame  of  our  troops  on  that  field 
from  unmerited  reproach — service  which  has  been  recognized  by  an  annual 
appropriation  to  the  battle-ground  by  the  General  Assembly  of  the  State,  to  be 
followed  probably  by  a  still  larger  appropriation  for  a  monument  by  the  United 
States  Government.  The  battle-ground  is  kept  in  admirable  order,  and  is 
beautified  with  monuments,  shaded  walks,  gushing  springs,  neat  cottages,  a 
museum  of  revolutionary  relics,  &c.  The  stirring  events  which  render  the  spot 
historic  are  annually  celebrated  in  May  by  a  grand  pageant  and  oration. 

PILOT   MOUNTAIN. 

Nearly  mid«-a}'  on  the  line  of  the  Piedmont  and  Mountain  Division  is  the 
Pilot  Mountain,  with  an  altitude  of  twenty-four  hundred  and  fifty-eight  feet, 
whose  summit  is  capped  by  the  Pinnacle,  an  irregular  cylindrical  or  truncated 
cone-shaped  mass  of  rock  with  a  surface  area  of  about  half  an  acre.  The  Pilot 
is  divided  into  two  parts — cleft  asunder,  doubtless,  by  some  convulsion  of  nature 
in  past  ages,  the  lesser  mountain  merging  gradually  into  the  hills  beyond.     The 


CAPE  FEAR  AND  YADKIN  VALLEY  RAILWAY.  IO9 

ascent  to  the  Pinnacle  is  easy,  and  the  latter  is  mounted  b\-  stone  steps  and 
hidders ;  during  the  dizzy  chnib  the  guide  does  not  fail  to  tell  you  that  fair 
woman  comes  to  the  accomplishment  of  this  feat  of  the  tourist  with  a  leveler 
head  than  protecting  man  ;  she  rarely  fails  to  mount  to  the  top,  while  her 
escort,  as  often  as  not,  surveys  the  towering  height — and  takes  his  seat  at  the 
base  to  await  the  return  of  the  party.  Accompan}'ing  illustrations  give  beautiful 
views  of  the  mountain  from  different  points  on  the  road.  Piloting  the  Indian, 
in  centuries  past,  through  the  trackless  wilds  of  his  hunting-grounds,  standing- 
alone  in  nature's  vast  expanse,  it  still  keeps  watch  and  ward  over  hamlet,  vil- 
lage and  field — the  fruits  of  a  civilization  which  has  brought  the  steel  rail  and 
the  rushing  train,  pacing  its  passing  tribute  in  the  long  trail  of  the  engine's 
smoke  that  floats  upward  and  curtains  its  rugged  sides. 

The  Suaratown  Mountains  lie  off  to  the  right  of  the  Cape  Fear  and 
Yadkin  Valley  Railway — a  range  of  lofty  hills  presenting  varied  and  charm- 
ing pictures  of  the  graceful,  beautiful  and  picturesque. 

ARARAT    RIVER. 

Here  the  scenery  assumes  a  character  of  wild  and  rugged  grandeur  which 

finds  its  counterpart  only  in  the  majestic  pictures  of  the  transmontane  region. 

The  road  winds  through  deep   cuts  and  precipitous  defiles,  hugging  the  sides 

of  the  hills— 

"Rock-ribbed  and  ancient  as  the  snn," 

and  flanked  by  the  Ararat  River's  tortuous  channel  and  rocky  bed.  Engi- 
neering skill  has  here  triumphed  over  wonderful  obstacles,  and  the  traveler 
is  struck  b\-  the  many  points  of  similarity  presented  by  this  portion  of  the 
route  and  parts  of  the  Pennsylvania  Central  Railroad  beyond  the  "  Horse- 
shoe." 

THE    BLUE    RIDGE. 

The  present  western  terminus  of  the  road  offers  a  grand  view  of  the 
main  chain  of  the  Blue  Ridge  Mountains,  which  to  the  north  have  a  height 
of  nearl}-  three-fourths  of  a  mile;  two  miles  distant  is  the  beautiful  Slate 
Mountain,  and,  farther  on,  Little  Mountain,  a  great  spur  from  the  main 
range ;  to  the  southeast  the  beauties  of  the  Suaratown  Mountains  charm 
the  eye  as  the  mists  of  morning  clear  awa\',  and  the  Pilot  looms  grandl}- 
in   the  distance. 

The  extension  of  the  Cape  Fear  and  Yadkin  \'alle}"  Railwa)',  and  its 
connection  with  the  Norfolk  and  Western  beyond  the  State  line,  will  furnish 
to  the  vo\'ager  the  scenerj'  of  a  wild  mountain  country  in  its  perfection,  and 
the  surmounting  and  passage  of  the  Blue  Ridge  will  carry  him  through  the 
wonders  attending  the  construction  of  railway  umler  such  circumstances  as 
uill   find  their  parallel   in  those  about   Round   Knob. 


l^eCGipituloition. 


HE  compiler  of  this  work  has  followed  the  line  of  the  Cape  Fear  and 
Yadkin  Valle\-  Railway  from  tidewater  to  the  foot  of  the  Blue 
Ridge,  noting  carefully  and  gathering  steadily  in  his  examination 
of  the  resources  of  the  country  developed  by  the  line.  Except 
where  he  has  felt  justified  in  using  approximate  figures  in  his  estimate  of  the 
increase  of  population  since  the  last  census,  he  has  aimed  to  deal  only  in  plain 
facts,  and  if  there  is  aught  inaccurate  or  untrue  within  these  pages,  he  does 
not  know  of  it.  That  the  road  is  well  worthy  of  the  important  place  assigned 
to  it  by  the  people  of  North  Carolina  among  the  great  internal  improvements 
of  the  South,  is  shown  by  the  following  summary  of  statistical  information : — 
It  leads  from  northwest  to  southeast,  through  a  belt  of  nineteen  counties, 
sustaining  a  population  of  363,572,  embraced  in  a  territorj'  of  12,759  square 
miles,  or  8,165,760  square  acres,  improved  and  unimproved,  with  a  total  tax  val- 
uation of  $22,933,045,  and  a  real  and  personal  property  valuation  of  §48,572,417. 
The  rate  of  taxation  in  this  State  is  remarkably  low ;  were  it  anything  like  that 
of  the  Eastern  and  Middle  States,  the  above  figures  would  be  increased  from 
$22,933,045  to  at  least  §45,000,000,  and  from  §48,572,417  to  §60,000,000. 

This  broad  domain  grows  an  infinite  variety  of  agricultural  products:  corn, 
wheat,  rye,  oats  (of  which  the  midland  and  western  sections  raise  a  surplus), 
rice,  peanuts,  Irish  and  sweet  potatoes,  field-peas,  chufas,  sorghum,  cotton, 
tobacco,  and  every  garden  vegetable  produced  from  one  end  of  the  Atlantic 
coast  to  the  other.  Of  fruits,  the  whole  region  is  especially  prolific :  the  pome- 
granate, white  and  blue  fig,  a  greater  number  of  distinct  species  of  grapes  than 
can  be  found  in  any  other  Southern  State,  apricots,  nectarines,  the  Japan  plum, 
apples,  pears,  peaches,  plums,  cherries,  delicious  melons,  and  all  the  small  fruits 
in  profusion.  So  diversified  are  the  products  throughout  the  extent  of  the  line, 
and  so  marked  are  the  climatic  differences,  that  an  agreeable  and  profitable 
interchange  of  commodities  is  possible  between  the  people  of  one  region  and 
the  other — those  of  the  tidewater  and  low  countrj'  tendering  to  their  friends  of 
the  Piedmont  and  mountain  section  the  first  fruits  of  their  labors  in  early  spring, 
vegetables  of  all  kinds,  while  yet  stern  nature  holds  locked  in  her  embrace 
forest  and  field  and  glade  of  the  up-country.  Thence  shall  come,  when  the 
earlier  seasons  of  the  coast  have  brought  their  treasures  and  passed  awa\',  the 

("3) 


114  CAPE  FEAR  AND  YADKIN  VALLEY  RAILwJ^. 

offerings  quickened  into  luxuriant  growth  by  mountain  breeze  and  clime :  ap- 
ples, pears,  peaches,  cherries,  the  Blue  Ridge  cabbage  (the  finest  in  the  world), 
and  the  dairy  products  of  this  goodly  land. 

The  strides  made  in  manufacturing  have  been  rapid  ;  but,  in  comparison 
with  the  magnificent  possibilities  furnished  by  the  water-power  along  the  line, 
the  establishment  of  the  different  branches  of  skilled  industry  may  be  said  to 
have  hardly  commenced.  Besides  cotton  milling,  the  almost  inexhaustible  forest 
area  renders  easy  and  feasible  the  manufacture  of  nearly  everything  useful  in 
wood  :  wheels,  hubs,  spokes,  handles,  shuttles,  buckets,  furniture,  the  wooden 
gear  of  agricultural  implements,  and,  in  fine,  all  the  woodenwares  entering  into 
the  daily  domestic  and  business  emploj'ments  of  man.  Iron  and  coal — the 
quality  and  quantity  of  which  have  been  attested  by  unimpeachable  authority — 
offer  abundant  material  and  unusual  facilities  for  the  establishment  of  found- 
ries and  the  manufacture  of  car  and  carriage  wheels  and  axles,  plows,  axes,  the 
different  tools  of  the  artisan,  &c. 

Collateral  advantages  combine  to  make  this  one  of  the  favored  manufactu- 
ring districts  of  the  world :  the  raw  material  is  easy  of  access  by  the  mills;  fuel 
can  be  obtained  at  a  merely  nominal  price  at  the  doors  of  the  factories ;  the 
general  mildness  of  the  climate  admits  of  uninterrupted  labor  all  the  year  round; 
there  is  no  restless  element,  infected  by  "  strikes  "  and  fomenting  discontent ; 
an  intelligent  population  are  quick  to  learn  the  trades,  and  are  soon  adepts  at 
the  loom,  the  spindle  and  the  engine-wheel. 

The  writer  was  careful  to  question  the  proprietors  of  the  different  mills 
herein  described  as  to  whether  native  labor  was  employed,  and  whether  it  was 
satisfactory,  and  in  nearly  every  instance  an  affirmative  reply  has  been  given. 

Minerals. 

Red  and  brown  sandstone,  a  superior  quality  of  granite,  soapstone,  gold, 
coal  and  iron  exist  in  quarries,  beds,  mines,  deposits  and  ranges  in  the  two 
upper  divisions  of  the  Cape  Fear  and  Yadkin  Valley  Railway — the  last  two 
not  only  of  paramount  importance  in  their  application  to  the  useful  arts  of 
man,  but  constantly  demanded  in  all  his  industrial  avocations  and  the  round 
of  his  daily  life.  What  may  we  not  expect  in  the  future  from  the  full 
utilization  of   the  unparalleled  riches  of   this  section  ! 

Timber  Resources. 

Nearly  all  the  different  kinds  of  timber  found  in  the  shipyards  of  the 
great  markets  of  this  country  grow  immediately  upon  or  contiguous  to  the 
line  of    this    railway :  the    pine    (alone    worth    millions  of   dollars   annually  in 


r 


CAPE  FEAR  AND  YADKIN  VALLEY  RAILWAY. 


lumber  and  naval  stores),  all  the  species  of  oak,  cedar,  holly,  cherry,  cypress, 
juniper,  hickor)-,  dogwood,  walnut,  sycamore,  persimmon,  elm,  gum,  chestnut, 
beech,  locust,  ash,  maple  and  other  less  important  woods. 

The  lesser  plant  flora  is  also  rich  and  varied,  the  lower  counties  produc- 
ing many  shrubs  and  flowers,  which  make  it  one  of  the  most  remunerative 
honey-producing  sections  of  North  Carolina,  while  in  the  mountainous  counties 
are  found  many  valuable  medicinal  herbs,  which  are  gathered  in  veiy  con- 
siderable quantity,  and  constitute  a  profitable  industry. 

A  Great  Commercial  Highway. 

No  better  summing-up  could  be  made  of  the  "  natural  indications  of  this 
route  as  the  necessarj- track  of  a  commercial  highway"  than  by  the  following 
terse  quotation  from  an  esteemed  authority : — 

"  It  is  the  shortest  line  to  the  head  of  navigation  (and  outlet  by  sea)  for 
almost  the  whole  middle  and  Piedmont  regions  of  the  State.  This  has 
been,  and  always  must  be,  a  most  weighty  consideration  in  settling  the  per- 
manent channels  of  traffic.  It  lies,  its  whole  length,  through  a  region  whose 
climate  never  affects  traffic  for  a  day  in  the  year.  It  crosses  at  right  angles 
three  great  north  and  south  railroad  lines,  and  so  makes  them  also  feeders 
to  its  freight  supplies." 

Inducements  for  Investment. 

In  all  the  nineteen  counties  included  in  this  route  good  farming  lands 
can  be  procured  at  from  five  dollars  'to  twenty  dollars  per  acre.  Excellent 
water-powers  are  to  be  obtained  at  reasonable  figures,  while  in  the  cities, 
towns  and  villages  real  estate  is  held  at  moderate  prices.  Almost  univer- 
sally good  water,  a  salubrious  climate,  a  satisfactoiy  system  of  hired  labor, 
law-abiding  and  intelligent  communities,  enjoying  as  good  church  and  school 
advantages  as  limited  means  and  a  sparse  population  will  permit — all  com- 
bine to  make  this  an  attractive  land  and  a  pleasant  home  to  the  industrious 
settler  from  any  quarter  of    the  globe. 


"T^l]e  "Tran^montane   E^^ten^ion, 


AVING  accomplished  this  great  work  within  the  borders  of  the 
State ;  almost  tracking  the  sands  of  the  coast  at  its  eastern 
terminus;  traversing  the  bottoms  and  gently  undulating  uplands 
of  the  Cape  Fear  section  ;  pushing  aside  the  obstacles  of  boulder 
and  rock  through  the  rugged  midland  region,  and  climbing  undauntedly 
onward  up  to  the  crowning,  lofty  gateway  leading  into  the  great  valley  of  the 
West ;  having  at  length  brought  to  its  fruition  the  Cape  Fear  and  Yadkin 
Valley  system  : — shall  the  barriers  of  mountain  and  gorge  stay  its  further 
progress  ?  Shall  not,  rather,  the  aggressive  Western  civilization  hail  its 
coming,  and  greet  its  forward  movement  with  connections  to  the  great  highway 
of  travel  and  traffic  on  to  Cincinnati  ? 

But  a  few  miles  remain  between  the  present  western  terminus  of  the  road 
and  the  State  line,  beyond  which  it  is  placed  in  direct  communication  with  a 
broad  valley,  or,  rather,  a  succession  of  valleys  of  wonderful  fertility,  immense 
resources  and  vast  natural  wealth.  Meeting  it  from  the  rich  pasture  and  stock- 
raising  lands  of  Southwest  Virginia,  the  Norfolk  and  Western  Railroad 
would  carry  it  on  to  the  treasures  of  a  country  fairer,  if  possible,  in  East 
Tennessee, whence  further  connections  would  open  to  its  transportation  the 
almost  untouched  riches  of  Southeastern  Kentucky.  To  him  who  has  but 
cursorily  glanced  at  the  products  of  this  "full-blooded  heart  of  the  continent," 
the  bare  statement  of  facts  must  seem  the  language  of  extravagance.  Occupy- 
ing an  area  equal  in  extent  to  one-fifth  of  the  territory  of  North  Carolina,  the 
coal  fields  of  Eastern  Kentucky,  with  all  the  fertile  and  diversified  region, 
including  Southwest  Virginia,  are  reasonably  sure  to  become  the  centre  of  a 
great  iron  industry.  Extensive  deposits  of  coal,  in  beds  ranging  from  fifteen  to 
twenty  feet  in  thickness,  in  conjunction  with  immense  ranges  of  iron  ore,  cannot 
fail  to  make  this  a  country  abounding  in  varied  and  profitable  industries. 

But  this  is  only  a  tithe  of  the  wealth  awaiting  utilization  and  development 
in  this  fair  valley.  While  from  its  skirts  ascends  the  smoke  of  hundreds  of 
smelting  furnaces,  it  holds  in  its  lap  a  granary  for  almost  a  world's  consumption. 
The  agricultural  products  seem  to  be  without  limit.  Corn  and  all  the  small 
grains,  the  products  of  the  dairy  and  the  orchard,  besides  salt,  plaster  and  great 
droves  of  fine  horses,  mules  and  cattle — now  conveyed  by  toilsome  means  and 

(ii8) 


CAPE  FEAR  AXD  YADKIN  VALLEY  RAILIVAY.  I  I9 


roundabout  ways  to  the  extreme  Southern  States  and  the  Northern  markets — 
would  then  furnish  all  the  year  through  an  amount  of  freight  which  would  tax 
the  most  extensive  railwa\'  transportation  facilities,  for  this  route  would  offer  the 
most  speedy  and  direct  transit  to  the  Atlantic  slope  and  the  seacoast. 

The  unfinished  part  of  the  line  of  the  Cape  Fear  and  Yadkin  Valley  Rail- 
wa\-  is  by  an  excellent  route  of  about  five  miles  to  the  State  border,  and 
connection  will  probably  be  made  with  the  Norfolk  and  Western  Railroad  at 
Willis'  Gap.  When  once  this  direct  communication  is  made,  it  must  inevitably 
be  followed  by  connections  which  will  graft  it  permanently  upon  the  great  chain 
of  railway  lines  extending  through  the  Cumberland  Valley  to  Louisville  and 
Knoxville,  and  onward  to  the  great  Western  States  by  the  South  Atlantic  and 
Ohio  and  Charleston,  Cumberland  Gap  and  Chicago  Railroads. 

When  we  take  into  consideration  the  mineral  wealth  abounding  throughout 
the  great  plateau  of  Western  North  Carolina,  either  on  the  line  of  the  Cape  Fear 
and"  Yadkin  Valley  Railway  or  within  eas}'  connection  thereto  : — the  vast  mag- 
netite iron  ranges,  including  the  rich  and  extensive  Cranberry  deposits,  and 
extending  eastward  to  the  great  beds  of  Stokes,  Guilford  and  Chatham — the 
great  industries  to  be  speedilj-  developed  by  the  transmontane  extension  will 
find  their  parallel  only  in  the  most  flourishing  manufacturing  districts  of  the 
country.  The  demand  for  coke  in  the  manufacture  of  iron  and  steel — often 
hitherto  transported  from  one  thousand  to  twelve  hundred  miles  to  the  smelting 
furnaces — is  increasing  year  by  year  in  tremendous  ratio,  and  the  western  exten- 
sion lays  the  shortest  and  quickest  line  of  rail  between  coal  bed  and  iron  deposit, 
bringing  together  by  eas}^  transportation  all  the  materials  for  the  successive 
steps  of  iron  and  steel  manufacture. 

In  the  preparation  and  arrangement  of  these  pages  the  difficulty  has  been 
not  to  gather  material,  but  to  summarize  and  compress  that  material  into  con- 
venient form  ;  an  "embarrassment  of  riches"  rather  than  a  poverty  of  resources 
meets  the  compiler  of  the  great  and  diversified  resources  developed  by  the  Cape 
Fear  and  Yadkin  ^"alley  Railway.  Do  not  the  abundant  facts  presented  justify 
the  claim  that  no  road  in  the  South  offers  superior  advantages  or  holds  out 
brighter  promise  of  progress  and  prosperity  to  the  region  through  which  it 
passes  ?  Judicious  investment  of  capital  in  manufacturing  enterprises  for  the 
utilization  of  the  varied  resources  of  this  favored  land  will  make  bustling  cities 
of  the  towns,  and  thriving  towns  of  the  villages  and  hamlets  which  dot  the  line 
of  road  from  border  to  border  of  the  State ;  immigration  will  bring  an  indus- 
trious population  to  augment  the  wealth  and  producing  power  of  thrifty  com- 
munities; and  the  near  future  will  bring  the  realization  of  the  long-cherished 
dream  of  the  completion  of  the 

Nfoptl^  ©arolins  ©ape  f-esr   and  Vadl<in  V/alUy  ^.y^te-ria. 


/-^^%%^''  iUnv  9lnnmiu\th(  tn\<  of  the 

/    ^       \^f      (APE  1  IIVR  i\^  VDklXA  VLLEY 


VM)     US     (  ONM  t   IIONS 


I  ue    ttlPl    Ii-FeiT  ^■^    dkm\  Jl  tIt  jlftpl^— 

1     r  "■^    -■"' 

(    nut    tmfi  line**  *""" 

bteamHliipimlsiuhiiSLOmie  ti  ns  t    Bosl  ii  ^e'  ^     M 
ITliliiaelplno  Baltmi  i     Clmileslon  Femandma   and 
WeBtlndia  and  Txilf  Forts 


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